


Sincere Friends of Liberty Have Been Rare

by myarofki



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Non Consensual, Rape, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:52:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 69,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myarofki/pseuds/myarofki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared is a 14-year-old convict with no hope and no future, until the day a man named Mark Pellegrino visits him with a deal. What follows is a balancing act, as Jared struggles to regain his life without destroying himself in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in an alternate reality where Jared is 14 and Jensen is 23. I've also changed their birthdays, the names of their family members, and where they're from. I know next to nothing about the legal system. Likewise, law enforcement agencies. Likewise, modern medicine. All facts about these things in this story are quite wrong. Please be prepared to suspend your disbelief, and imagine that this story is set in a world that is similar to, and yet totally different from, our own.
> 
> Also, a million thankyous to my lovely beta, charmedstrange1. She put a lot of work into this story, improved it immeasurably, and I hope it goes without saying that any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

He opened his eyes and he was lying on his back in the infirmary, breathing heavily through his mouth because his nostrils were packed with cotton. It was the first week in November and he’d been at the detention center for less than a month. It was already the second time he’d been in the infirmary. He was fourteen years and three months old, and he still had ten years to go on his sentence.

The doctor came over and told him in a dead voice that he’d almost gotten his nose broken.

He turned his head slightly and looked around. Nothing had changed since he was last there. This time he couldn’t smell anything, but he didn’t want to anyway. He could remember the bleach and urine scent of the dingy gray room from the first time.

There was a low ringing in his ears, and a pulsing pain at his temple, though he couldn’t remember actually hitting his head. He didn’t remember what had happened at all clearly, and didn’t want to try. He’d probably dream it in living color that night anyway, if he could get to sleep at all once they’d put him back in his cell. He wanted to spend the night in the infirmary, but he thought asking the doctor probably wouldn’t get him anywhere. Maybe he wouldn’t be safe in the infirmary either anyway. He didn’t know. He didn’t understand anything about this place. He didn’t understand anything about the people in it, and what they would or wouldn’t do.

The doctor hadn’t met his eyes since the guard who broke up the ‘fight’ brought him in. The doctor was about as gray and dingy as his infirmary, and seemed to have decided Jared was a lost cause. Maybe he thought they all were. Jared didn’t know why he would want to be a doctor if he didn’t care about helping people, and he didn’t understand why he would be a doctor _here_ if he didn’t want to help kids, but everything about the doctor seemed dead, from his eyes to his voice to his limp gray hair. Jared thought maybe he didn't like anybody, and figured here was as good a place as any to carry on being miserable.

The first time Jared was brought to the infirmary he needed stitches in his arm from another boy’s plastic knife in the dining hall. Jared was scared and shaken and his arm was dripping blood, but he remembered what his parents had always taught him about being polite and stuck out his good hand.

“Hi,” he’d said. “I’m Jared Padalecki.”

The doctor hadn’t even blinked. “Get up on that cot,” he’d said with a jerk of his head. He’d ignored Jared’s tentative questions and stitched him up without once looking at his face. Then he’d shoved a couple pills at him without even telling him what they were.

It was no better this time.

“Am I alright, sir?” Jared asked warily, when the doctor had finished shining a light in his eyes and taking his blood pressure and was writing something in Jared’s chart. The doctor looked at him briefly and grunted. Then he looked back down at the chart and finished writing.

“You're fine. You can sit up now,” the doctor said, turning away.

The red phone on the wall buzzed and the doctor went to answer it without seeming to care whether Jared was feeling well enough to keep himself perched on the edge of the cot. Jared was okay levering himself upright, but once he was sitting, his head swooped and rolled. He closed his eyes and gripped the cracked orange vinyl under him. If he took a header off the cot he’d go straight into the linoleum, and there was nobody around to hold his hand or kiss it better. There were 133 beds at the Mountain Creek Youth Development Center, and 100 members on staff. As far as Jared could tell, the only people who’d learned his name so far did it so they could torment him better. But he didn't want to think about that any more. Jared forced his eyes open. The floor was a long way down, and it looked horrifyingly dirty. In an effort to distract himself from that, he looked around for the doctor. When he found him, he drew in a surprised breath.

The doctor was opening the door to let in a thin man in a suit, gray and expensive looking. He wore a pale blue silk tie that matched his pale blue eyes and the pale blue veins tracing along his temples. His hair was dirty blonde. It looked soft and well-groomed. He didn’t look at all like he belonged there.

Jared watched him come over and tried not to throw up. He thought he knew what the man had come for: the expensive suit and the cool professionalism in his gaze were big hints. He had to be another lawyer for Liam’s grandfather, there to make Jared’s life that much more miserable. What happened was an accident, but Liam’s grandfather, Mr. Fuller, didn’t see it that way at all.

The man’s brow furrowed when he caught sight of Jared.

“This is him?” he asked. His cultured voice was a perfect match for Mr. Fuller’s trial lawyer. The one who’d convinced the judge to give him ten years, and who’d tried very hard to make it ten years in an adult facility. Jared wondered if this new lawyer had succeeded where the old one had failed, and had come to inform Jared that he was about to be transferred to a place where he could face the adult versions of the guys who’d put him in the infirmary.

“Padalecki, Jared. Prisoner 24601.” The doctor read it off from the chart in his hand without looking up.

“That’s you?” The man asked Jared, then flipped open a manila file he was holding and looked at something in it, looked at Jared, looked back at the file. Comparing a photograph, Jared supposed.

“Yes, sir,” Jared mumbled and swallowed hard against rising nausea. For some reason, the man sighed. Jared guessed maybe it was the stuffy, nasal tone of his voice. With the cotton in his nose, there was no way to talk without sounding ridiculous.

“You can leave us,” he told the doctor. “And leave his chart with me.” The doctor looked startled for a second, the most life he’d ever shown in Jared's presence. Then he handed over the chart and slipped out the door without a backward glance. Given the way Jared remembered him smelling from the first time, he’d probably gone out for a smoke break.

“My name is Pellegrino. Mark Pellegrino...” the man in the suit started, then trailed off as he began to read Jared’s chart. Probably the man, Pellegrino, was memorizing the chart to report back to Mr. Fuller just how much Jared had been suffering. He thought Mr. Fuller would probably want to know.

“Someone sure has taken a real disliking to you, Jared.” Pellegrino said slowly, putting the chart down on the cot next to Jared’s hip and pinning him with a gaze so intense it felt like his mind was being x-rayed. “Who’s doing this to you?”

“I don’t remember, sir. I’m sorry.”

The man looked pensive, almost sad.

“They wouldn’t need to know you told,” Pellegrino said softly. “The way things are going, it looks like you’re headed for a lot more visits to the infirmary. Some day they could take it too far. They wouldn’t even have to mean to, it could happen by accident. You must know how easily fatal accidents can happen.”

Jared looked down at his hands.

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t remember,” he said stiffly.

“Or is it that you want to die?” Pellegrino’s tone changed in a blink from sorrowful to aggressive.

Jared was startled by the change and kept silent, waiting for whatever was coming next, but the man just repeated angrily, “Do you want to die, Jared?”

“No sir,” Jared said quickly.

“You’ve got another ten years of this to look forward to though,” Pellegrino barked. “Do you think that you’ll be able to last another ten years of this? They’ve told you you’ll be moved to an adult facility when you turn 18, right? Come on, Jared. You think juvie’s bad, just wait til you turn eighteen. I mean, have you looked in the mirror lately? They’ll eat you alive up there.”

The words of the boys from that day suddenly rang clearly in his ears. He hadn’t wanted to remember what they’d said, what they’d promised would happen. He couldn’t think of any way to stop them if they really wanted to do what they’d said they planned to do.

Jared shut down that line of thought and saw that Pellegrino was watching him closely, like a scientist watching a bug or something. It made him angry and frightened, but if he showed it he’d be in worse trouble than he could imagine, he was sure.

“A reputation as a snitch won’t help me, sir,” he said neutrally.

“True. That’s true,” Pellegrino finally smiled, a strange, jarring smile. “What if I told you I could get you out of here? What would you say to that?”

“I’d... I don’t understand, sir.” He tried to keep his voice even, but there was a little tremble there he couldn’t smooth out. He couldn't follow Pellegrino's rapid changes in mood, and he couldn't keep himself from searching Pellegrino’s face for some sign that the man might actually mean it, even though he knew how ridiculous it would be to believe that anybody could help him at this point.

“I know you don’t,” Pellegrino smiled. “Let’s not worry about that yet. There’s something I think you could help me with, but I haven’t decided yet if you’re the right man for the job.”

He couldn’t be Fuller’s lawyer at all, but who was he then, Jared wondered? Unless he was part of some kind of trap Fuller was trying to spring on him?

“Let’s talk for a bit, while I decide if you’re what I’m looking for, and then, if I decide you are, I’ll fill you in and _you_ can decide if the risks I’d be asking you to take seem worth it.”

The man began with basic questions: Jared’s birth date, birth place, how he did in school and how many siblings he had. It was a good thing they were easy questions. Jared’s mind was racing, trying to figure out what Pellegrino could possibly be aiming for. Unfortunately the man’s face gave very little away.

Soon he moved on to more complicated questions. Questions of morality, like what the correct response was to finding a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. Also more personal things, like which parent Jared considered himself closest to. For the twenty dollar bill question, Jared lied and said he’d ask passers-by if they’d dropped it. He couldn’t tell if Pellegrino liked that answer or not. He told the truth when he said he was equally close to both his parents, but he let slip that he hadn’t talked to them in awhile, and Pellegrino seemed very interested in that. He tried to get an explanation about that from Jared, but Jared didn’t have one to give, and just ended up red-faced, stuttering through a lame excuse about them being busy people. It was true, but it wasn’t a real excuse and Jared knew it. Eventually Pellegrino let it go and fired the next question.

After more questions than Jared could count, he sat back and reread Jared’s medical chart for a while. Then he spent some time flipping through the manila file he’d carried in with him, stopping for painfully long minutes to read over mysterious papers and study densely filled in government forms. Jared sat quietly with his hands in his lap and waited for the ax to fall. It seemed like everything that had happened to him lately had only been the worst luck. Whatever happened next, he should probably just prepare himself for it to be one more blow.

The man finally looked up and closed the file. He watched Jared for a minute, and Jared watched him right back, unnerved. Then Pellegrino smiled. When he started talking again, Jared realized that Pellegrino had moved beyond questions, and begun explaining who he was and what he was doing there. Jared listened attentively, all the while wondering whether this meant he’d actually passed Pellegrino’s test.

Pellegrino explained that he wasn’t a lawyer at all, but an FBI agent. For years Pellegrino had had his eye on another agent, one he believed to be corrupt. Recently, the corrupt agent had tranferred from the FBI to the GIS, the Government Investigative Service, and Pellegrino was afraid he’d continue to break laws at the new agency, but this time with no one around to watch him do it.

He’d been trying hard to build a case, but the man was well-insulated and all the evidence Pellegrino had managed to find was just circumstantial. He needed hard evidence, but he hadn’t found a way to get it for himself.

As he talked, Pellegrino seemed to become lost in his own frustration, and Jared wondered if he even remembered who he was talking to. He was tempted to check the wall clock, curious about how many minutes the man had been going already, but he kept his eyes dutifully fixed on Pellegrino's face instead.

He was trying to figure out why _he_ was being told any of this at all, when Pellegrino’s eyes suddenly sharpened. “I need to get into his house,” he told Jared, tone even more urgent than it had been up to that point. “I need access to his computer files, bank account information... I need bugs in his office and his car. I need a tap on his phone lines. But even if I could get authorization to place an undercover agent near him or plant a bug or two, I don’t trust my own office to keep a lid on it for long enough to bear fruit. He’s still got plenty of friends at the bureau who’d be only too happy to shut the operation down.”

He scowled fiercely. “Which doesn’t matter, anyway, since I can’t get authorization. But if I can get that evidence first, then I can convince my boss that Speight’s been dirty all along. I can get warrants. If I can get warrants I can handpick a team of trustworthy agents, place official surveillance equipment, and finally nail the son of a bitch. But without anything concrete to get the boss on my side, I’m alone on this one.” Pellegrino scowled fiercely for a minute, then smoothed out his face and leaned close.

“I am the _only_ one who knows that I’m talking to you today. There will be no record of this visit in the prison log. My boss doesn’t know I’m here. I took a personal day to come down here. If you decide not to help me, you can serve out the rest of your sentence in peace. I promise I won’t bother you again. If you decide to help me, and you get caught before I get authorization, I may not be able to help you. I'm going about this backwards, and what I want you to do isn't strictly legal. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. But... I don’t understand- what is it you want me to do?”

“Have you heard of the Youthful Offender Apprenticeship Program, Jared?”

“Yes, sir?” His lawyer had mentioned it once as a way to keep him out of juvie if he was convicted. His parents hadn’t liked the sound of it. They’d still had some hope of winning the case then. It hadn’t turned out to be a possibility after all, with the way Fuller’s lawyers were baying for blood. They’d asked for all his time to be served inside, and the judge had given them that, just like he’d given Mr. Fuller everything else he’d wanted.

“Well, what is it, as you understand it?” Pellegrino prompted impatiently.

“My lawyer said if I entered the program they’d assign me to an adult to learn a trade, sir. That person would be responsible for me, and I’d have to work hard for them, not cause any trouble. He said a lot of kids would rather do that than juvie, but he said it was hard to get into. He thought I should try it. But the judge said I couldn’t, sir.”

Pellegrino nodded. “Looking through your file I noted at least ten points that mark you an ideal candidate, psychologically speaking. These same things are the traits I was looking for when I thought of this plan. Unfortunately for you, you were never considered for the program due to the judge’s recommendation. Bad luck for you that it was Kurt Fuller’s grandson you killed. My sources say Judge Reynolds has been in his pocket his entire career.”

Pellegrino studied Jared’s face and his eyes softened. “Except you didn’t kill him, did you? I could see it from your file. It was an accident, right?” Jared nodded. “You really shouldn’t have been convicted at all,” he continued, in a low tone. “But all too often that’s the way it goes isn’t it? The corruption running rampant at every level makes me sick. You shouldn’t have been convicted, you shouldn’t have gotten the sentence you got, and you should’ve been the first on the list for the YOAP. You got screwed here, three times over.” He sighed, then straightened his shoulders.

“Jared, I’m glad I found your file. I’m glad I can give you this chance, because you really deserve it. I can see you’re not a criminal, Jared. You’re an innocent kid who got railroaded by our corrupt system. You have as much reason to want to take this agent I told you about down as I do. It’s people like him that take the bribes and look the other way so that people like you don’t stand a chance.”

Jared suddenly found himself blinking back tears. It was the first time since his sentencing that Jared felt like there was somebody on his side. He ran a finger convulsively over a rough tear in the vinyl next to his thigh and took some deep breaths.

“Hey, kiddo, it’s all right,” Pellegrino said. He reached out and gave Jared’s shoulder a squeeze. “It’s gonna be alright. You’re the one I want for this job, okay? You know, I was gonna interview a couple other candidates after this, but I’m really hoping you’ll say ‘yes’ and that won’t be necessary. There’s not a person in our entire correctional system that deserves this chance more. So what do you say?”

“I’m still not sure, uh, what you want me to agree to do, exactly,” Jared said apologetically.

“Can you guess?” Pellegrino asked, with a curious smile.

“I think... you want me to sign up for the program, sir? And be the apprentice to the corrupt agent, and uh, gather you information on him, from the inside?”

“Good, Jared. Once again, your test scores didn’t lie. That is precisely what I need you to do. You’ll live with this guy, work with him, pretend like you’re nothing more than a simple apprentice, and all the while you’ll be gathering information on him, working towards your freedom. You get me enough to get a real investigation going, and then we’ll see how long it takes before he’s being led away in handcuffs.” Pellegrino’s eyes danced at the idea.

“It’ll take time.” Pellegrino’s voice got hard and solemn, but his eyes didn’t stop snapping with excitement. “I’ll need hard evidence, it can’t just be your word about what you saw, and it won’t be easy. If he treats you badly, not that I think he will, but _if_ he does, well, your options are limited. Your word against his is not what I’m going for. I want to bring everything he’s built up crashing down. I need evidence hard enough to stick, nothing less. Look, he’s never struck me as a violent guy, I don’t think he’ll treat you wrong, but I don’t _know_. He’s not a good guy. He’s greedy and corrupt. Some of his friends are nasty pieces of work. If there’s a problem with how he treats you you can come to me and I’ll get you pulled, but that’s the best I can promise. I can’t promise you’ll end up anywhere but right back here if that happens. You get me? This is all or nothing. You get me that evidence and I can help you, Jared, you don’t, and there’s not much I can do for you. Do you understand?”

Jared nodded and swallowed. Pellegrino’s smile came creeping back. “But Jared... Jared, kiddo, if we bring him down... If we bring them all down, there’s not a judge in this country that won’t say ‘Hey, this kid doesn’t belong in prison. This kid built our case for us.’ And you’ll have me fighting for you. I’ll get you the best damn deal anyone’s ever heard of for your part in this. You won’t spend another day in here.”

“I understand, sir,” he said quietly. The throbbing and spinning in his head had little to do with the lump on it anymore, and everything to do with the excitement swelling up in his chest. He wasn't sure he understood how Pellegrino thought that a juvenile offender gathering evidence illegally was the best way to build a case, but he wasn't an FBI agent himself. Pellegrino seemed to think it would work, and surely he would know. Jared took a deep breath. “I want to do it, sir.”


	2. Chapter 2

One week later, Jared met Special Agent Richard Speight, his target. He was shorter than Jared expected. His brown eyes looked friendly and open. He wasn’t somebody Jared would have instantly suspected of being a criminal mastermind. Jared felt stupid for being surprised by that; Judge Reynolds had looked like Santa Claus.

Speight looked down at Jared and then up at the guards flanking him on either side. He smiled and opened his front door wider.

“This must be Jared. Come in, come in,” he said. He waved them in casually, though none of the three looked like they belonged in a house like Speight’s. Jared knew he should’ve guessed that Speight would be rich, with him being a criminal mastermind, but he still hadn’t expected the size and class of the house. It was white and large, with a long curved driveway and a wide red door. The house looked old, but the paint was pristine and there wasn't a single weed poking up through the brick walkway. It seemed impossible that he should go so quickly from the stark poverty of the underfunded detention center, directly to this. If it weren’t for the circumstances, it could have been the ending of a fairytale.

It was an early morning in November, and the air outside was clear and cold and made his nose hurt. The air as Jared stepped inside felt like a warm embrace. It smelled instantly like home, enough that Jared might have rocked back a step, if the guards hadn’t been there.

“What do you guys need? You want coffee? I’ve got some brewing.” Speight hooked a thumb over his shoulder to point toward what must have been the kitchen. His movements were excited, almost childlike. Jared struggled again to match this guy with the career criminal Pellegrino had described to him.

He was distracted by the drifting scent of fresh coffee and fought off a strong pang of homesickness. In the detention center there was nothing, not a single thing, that smelled like a home. Even the things he’d never really noticed before were all wrong: the laundry detergent was too harsh, the handsoap was too artificial. Everything was institutional and impersonal. And underneath all the chemicals and cleansers polluting the air, there were always still the dirty traces of sweat and piss and blood.

Richard Speight’s home smelled like fresh coffee and lightly scented lemon cleaner, and it filled Jared with a desperate mix of hope and longing. It was hard to believe that a place that smelled so much like home could be dangerous.

Speight gave the guards coffee and wordlessly poured Jared a glass of milk.

“Thank you, sir,” Jared said.

“You’re welcome, Jared,” Speight answered with a smile that Jared itched to return. He wasn't sure he should though. His newer instincts to guard himself against strangers warred with his older instincts to return friendliness with friendliness.

Speight turned to the guards before he'd really made up his mind. The guards had papers to review with him. They pointed out sections he needed to read in their presence, and lines he needed to sign. Jared sat and sipped his milk in the chair Speight had indicated for him and watched the procedure from beneath his lashes. His heart was beating fast, and he kept expecting something to happen, Speight to get doubtful and start asking him probing questions, or the guards to suddenly exclaim that they forgot some form and couldn’t proceed after all.

But nothing happened. Speight signed everywhere they told him to, and the guards slugged back their coffee, and finally they took back all the forms and Speight leaned back in his chair, smiling again. Like he didn’t just finalize anything important. Like he did this sort of thing every day. He struck up a conversation with the guards about baseball.

Speight spoke in an educated tone, clearly upper-class, but not so high-handed that the guards took offense. Maybe they just didn’t mind putting up with it for the excuse to sit around drinking free coffee for a while on a work day.

Nobody tried to include Jared in the conversation, and he was happy to sit quietly and let them talk. He thought that fading into the background would probably be a good strategy. Despite Pellegrino’s certainty that he was the right man for the job, he wasn’t exactly a trained spy.

The guards eventually started to make noises about leaving, and Speight nodded and mentioned that he was cleared to take the whole day off but there were errands to run and some work he should do from home later. Jared’s heart picked up a little as it sunk in that he was about to be left there on his own. He told himself that Speight seemed nice, and that whatever happened he could get through it, and that nothing could possibly be worse than juvie had been.

Then the bigger guard, the one who’d done most of the talking said, “You got the collar control already, right? You know how to work it?”

The control was for the black rubber collar they’d fitted around Jared’s neck before beginning transport that morning. He’d managed to forget about it for a little while, but as soon as the guard mentioned it, he could feel it squeezing his throat again. It was a shock collar, like they used on dogs, but a lot more powerful, and a lot harder to take off.

“Oh yes. They gave me one when they came to set up the perimeter,” Speight answered.

“Alright. We’ll have to test that and we’ll be out of your hair.”

Jared prayed they didn’t mean they actually had to test the shock collar on him, but something in the set of the guard’s jaw made him worried.

“They tested the perimeter alarm when they set it up. There wasn’t any problem with it,” Speight said.

“Yeah well, the perimeter’s the perimeter, and if they say it works then it works. That’s not the issue. The issue is that regulations say we gotta see that your remote for the collar works and that you know how to use it. Sorry, it’s regulations.”

“I see...” Speight frowned and shifted in his seat, then pulled an ugly black remote from his pants pocket. Jared’s heart stuttered. “I assume you take the collar off him to do it then?”

“We prefer if you do it on him, just this once, at the beginning,” the guard said seriously. “It’s not required, exactly, but they say it’s more likely he won’t try and make some kind of run for it if he understands how effective the collar is.”

"Are you kidding me?" Speight asked, eyebrows raised.

"No, sir."

"It won’t hurt him. They’re aware that it’s children they’re dealing with when they program them,” the other guard jumped in.

"Won't hurt him?" Speight said angrily. "It's a powerful electric shock. It's definitely going to hurt him. I thought that was half the point, or the collar wouldn't be such a great damn deterrent in the first place."

"Won't _injure_ him," the first guard corrected. "Listen, Mr. Speight-"

" _Agent_ Speight," Speight interrupted frostily.

"Fine then. Agent Speight. It's admirable that you want to take this young man into your home and give him an opportunity to start fresh, have a productive future and all that. Really. But you're not doing this kid any favors being soft on him now. And if we go back and report to our superiors that we have our doubts about your ability to handle him, well, all I'm saying is, with this being a new program and all, everybody's very eager to have it run smooth. Nobody wants an escape attempt making the news, getting people all riled up when the legislation's only just been passed in the first place. You see?"

Speight sighed and studied the control in his hand with an expression that looked like he was bracing himself for something unpleasant.

“Wait a sec,” the quieter guard said, and for a just a split second Jared thought he might be coming to his defence. “We gotta brace him.” They each grasped one of Jared’s upper arms, and Jared found himself pulled firmly against the back of the chair, trapped. “Alright. Whenever you’re ready, just press and hold the red button. After three seconds it’ll kick on, and then you hold it for just long enough to let him feel it, like, one one thousand, two one thousand. It stops as soon as you release the button again. If you wanted to test the limit you could hold it down until it shut itself off automatically. It'll never go for longer than thirty seconds at a time. If you need it for longer than that, you need to let it up, then hold it down for another three seconds to start it up again."

Jared tried to blank his mind and face. He tried to tell himself that it wouldn’t kill him, even if it hurt. The guard had said so.

He didn’t believe himself. It wasn’t fair that they wanted to put him through this when he was never planning on escaping. He bit his tongue so he wouldn't start to beg.

Speight settled his gaze on Jared’s face.

“Is this okay?” he asked, and even though he was looking straight at Jared, it still took him a minute to understand that Speight was asking _him_ for permission.

“Uh,” he said, startled into incoherence. A split second decision faced him. He felt sick at the thought of being shocked, even for a couple seconds. But he really wanted Speight to like him and trust him. Pellegrino had told him that the wise way to play it would be to be as cooperative as possible. Then Speight would let down his guard faster, and Jared could do what he’d set out to do faster, and the entire nightmare would be over faster. He’d promised himself, lying awake in his cot last night, too wound up to sleep a wink, that he would do whatever it took to free himself. He’d meant it then, when he hadn’t had the reality of it staring him in the face like it was now.

“Um, Yes, sir. I- It’s okay, sir,” he stuttered out, before he had the chance to think better of it.

Speight frowned. “Is this the first time you’ve had it used on you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Speight sighed. “This is insane. But I’ll make it as quick as I can, alright? Two seconds. I promise. Hopefully it’ll be the last time you ever have to feel this.”

Jared’s heart sank, and he realized he’d been hoping Speight wouldn’t actually make him go through with it.

“Yes, sir,” he answered numbly.

Speight carefully put his fingertip on the red button. “Tell me when you’re ready,” he said.

Jared gave himself a mental three count, then, eyes locked desperately on Speight’s, he forced out, “Ready, sir.”

Speight’s finger depressed the button and then they stared at each other, three long seconds ticking by. Jared’s heart raced. His breath choked in his throat. The collar seemed suddenly thicker, heavier.

Jared had braced himself, but when the pain hit he still wasn't ready for it. All of his muscles spasmed and wrenched uncontrollably. His eyes instantly glazed with tears. The guards' hands were the only things keeping him upright; without them, he would've slipped to the floor. He could hear Speight counting aloud, but the words seemed to linger and bend as though time were warping. Each syllable took an hour. He tried to speak, say _enough, enough_ , but he couldn’t make a sound. He couldn’t move his tongue to speak, could only listen and feel the pain.

Then, finally, it was over. He relaxed back into the chair. He felt as limp as a piece of spaghetti.

“Alright?” Speight asked, and pressed his fingers in under Jared’s jaw to check his pulse.

“Yes, sir,” Jared murmured, repressing a shiver. And then, remembering the plan, added meekly “Thank you, sir.”

He told himself that the warm feeling it gave him when Speight looked startled and moved by his gratitude was just the pride of keeping his wits about him and himself on track, even after the worst pain of his life. But Speight’s fingers on his skin were gentle, and Speight’s eyes were soft, and for the first time it occured to Jared to wonder what he should do if Pellegrino was wrong. He’d seemed so convinced, it hadn’t crossed Jared’s mind that Speight might have been innocent. Would Pellegrino hold to the deal if Jared proved that Speight hadn’t done anything wrong? Because really, wouldn't that be the best outcome of all? Then Jared wouldn't have anything to fear here, and eventually Pellegrino would have to admit he'd done his best, and that he owed it to him to help him be free anyway.

Speight got up and left with the guards. A minute later Jared heard the front door open and then close. He straightened his spine. Speight came back from showing the guards out and grinned down at him.

“You look better. You feeling better?” Speight asked.

Jared nodded.

“Well enough for a tour of the house?” Speight asked.

Jared nodded again, and tried to keep his hand from shaking when Speight reached down and clasped it to pull him up.

Speight lead him on a slow tour, telling Jared the house’s history and pointing out antiques of note until Jared gave up on remembering anything but the most important things. The house had apparently been in the family a while, and Speight bought it when his great-aunt passed on, to keep it in the family. Speight’s father was dead but his mother was still alive and had her own house, the same one Speight and his sisters were raised in.

He also started telling Jared about his job as they walked. Jared took particular note of that, since it was the job Speight would be teaching him. The GIS team Speight was a part of handled major crimes in addition to less serious ones. They investigated murders, robberies, and even a few terrorism cases. Any crime that involved or appeared to involve government employees was fair game, and Speight’s team was one of the best. He assured Jared that he’d have a boring, not at all dangerous job, a desk job. He said Jared would mostly learn how to do really basic paperwork for them, and could spend the rest of his time working on his GED.

Jared almost felt like crying at that news.

“Does that sound good?” Speight asked with an arched brow.

“Yeah,” Jared swallowed thickly. “Yes, sir, I... Thank you, sir. I didn't think I’d ever get my diploma, after everything that’s happened.” Jared had worked hard in school, been excited at the advanced classes he could finally sign up for as a high school freshman. It had been a bitter pill to swallow when he’d realized he’d never even get to finish his freshman year.

“Well don’t worry about that anymore, okay? If you want to get your diploma, you’ll damn well get your diploma. We’ll make sure of it.” Speight grinned and Jared smiled back tentatively, which made Speight brighten even more.

The tour ended in a bedroom on the second floor. It was nice and simple, decorated in white and blue.

“This is going to be your room,” Speight said, grinning widely.

Jared stared, struck by a feeling of unreality. That morning his room had been a sixteen by sixteen box in solitary with a slot in the door for meals. He'd been in there for a week (that had felt like a year,) for his own protection. Before Pellegrino had visited, his cell hadn’t even had a door, just bars. He’d lain awake at night listening to the sound of other boys taunting, threatening, and occasionally hurting each other.

This bedroom was neat, clean, and full of furniture that looked brand new and expensive. Speight pointed out a door on the right hand wall, and Jared had the thought that there were no more beautiful words in the English language than ‘private bathroom.’ He couldn’t believe how quickly his life had turned around. He felt like he’d travelled to a whole new planet.

The closet in the bedroom was empty. Speight eyed the thin white t-shirt and baggy gray sweatpants Jared wore and sighed.

“They sent you some clothes, but nothing that’ll do for the office. It’s all just more of the same. If you’re up for it, I was planning on taking you shopping today, so you can come to the office with me tomorrow.”

Jared swallowed against another wave of unreality, and nodded quickly.

“Yes, sir.”

  
He might not have been so eager to agree if he’d known what a trial the shopping trip would prove to be. He hadn’t prepared himself for how overwhelming it would feel to be out in public again, back in the normal world, but also not. His collar instantly marked him as different to anybody who glanced his way. Just walking from Speight’s car to the store, Jared counted three people who caught sight of it and didn’t stop staring. He guessed with time he’d get used to it, but it left him red and embarrassed as they entered the store.

Jared didn’t need to see a single price tag to know that the store was more exclusive than anywhere he’d been inside before. He guessed he never would have felt comfortable there, but in his cheap juvie clothes and rubber collar, he just wanted to turn tail and lock himself back in Speight’s SUV.

They were instantly accosted by their own personal saleslady. She was cool and elegant, with sleek blonde hair and delicately penciled eyebrows. Once she’d greeted Speight, she looked Jared over, and then she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off his collar.

The YOAP was a small program as yet, with only about 200 kids in it. Half of them were concentrated in Boston, and half down in Miami: the first two cities in the country to pass the necessary legislation. He didn’t know if she’d ever seen a convict apprentice in real life, whether she’d read editorials on the program or seen something on the news that told her what he was. Certainly, she seemed to reach the conclusion fast enough that the collar meant he was something she’d find on the bottom of her shoe. Maybe she was one of those adults who never viewed kids as real people, but the way her eyes lingered on his neck and skipped over his face said otherwise, and made him hot with shame. Once, he tried to smile at her anyway, but the cold stare she gave him in return told him how little she appreciated the attempt. He kept his eyes down after that.

Jared thought he’d gotten used to being treated differently in juvie, where the guards were king and could be brutal to their charges, but it was different encountering it in the real world. He used to belong there. He used to be another normal kid. It was kind of terrifying to realize that he couldn’t count on being treated as a normal kid anywhere anymore.

It took over an hour of trying things on before Speight was satisfied. By the time Speight guided him to the counter and dropped his credit card with a careless clatter, Jared had the exact pattern of the carpet imprinted on the insides of his eyelids, and had begun an in-depth inspection of his own toes. He was wearing canvas slip-ons that were already fraying at the edges. He wondered if he should mention that he needed new shoes to match his new clothes, but he dreaded the idea of another store, another salesclerk, and maybe next time some other customers to glare and gawk.

“Hey, you doing alright there, kiddo?” Speight asked suddenly, and dropped a warm hand on Jared’s shoulder. Jared couldn’t stop himself from flinching, but he straightened himself up quickly.

“Uh. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Speight smiled and his hand moved up to cup the back of Jared’s neck, splaying his fingers across both his skin and the collar. He didn’t understand how Speight could touch it so casually. Maybe it didn’t feel the same when wasn’t your neck it was locked around.

Speight removed his hand to sign the receipt. Curious, Jared glanced at it and almost felt his eyes bug out of his head. The bill had come to over 2,000 dollars. He reassured himself that Speight’s house was really nice, that this was all Speight’s idea, and that Jared hadn’t asked him to spend anything at all on him. It still left him feeling uneasy. It seemed like a lot of money to spend on a juvenile delinquent he’d never met before that day. He wondered if behind his smiles, Speight was still feeling guilty for the electric shock.

Speight handed Jared the bags to carry on the way back to the car. He hummed under his breath and walked with a bounce in his step while Jared kept his eyes on the sidewalk. If anyone stared at him he didn’t see it.

Next, Speight took him to a shoestore. Jared did his best to ignore the other customers and spoke only to Speight and the shoe salesman, and only when one of them asked him a question. Speight picked him out sneakers, and two pairs of nice shoes for the office.

He hoped that with the clothes and the shoes they were done, but they continued on to a bookstore next. He had to bite his tongue not to protest that he was tired of shopping and just wanted to go home. He was glad he did when he followed Speight straight to the front counter and they picked up a big stack of textbooks that Speight had ordered for him. Speight had already looked into exactly what it would take for Jared to earn his GED, and gotten the books sent priority so they’d be there when Jared got there.

“Thank you, sir,” he murmured, overwhelmed to an embarrassing degree by the man’s generosity. Speight handed him the books and ruffled his hair. Speight seemed to be a touchy-feely kind of guy.

“I want you to do well here, Jared,” he answered, and Jared believed him.

He gave Jared an overview of the material the books covered as they walked out to the car. It sounded like a lot, but Jared was excited for it, genuinely excited. He had to remind himself that he probably wouldn’t even be there long enough to make much progress. Despite what Pellegrino had said about being patient, Jared planned to work quickly.

Hanging around studying textbooks to get his GED would be stupid when he could be clearing his name and getting free, going back to a real high school.

Jared hoped they’d head home after the bookstore, but instead they went to the grocery store. Speight gave Jared the cart to push and then led him through the aisles. He checked to make sure Jared wasn’t allergic to anything, but he didn’t ask what Jared liked. Jared was disappointed to see that everything Speight put in the cart looked really really... healthy. He picked a lot of frozen dinners, all Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine. He also grabbed health food bars and apples and plain yogurt.

When he caught Jared looking longingly at the Cocoa Puffs in the cereal aisle he pulled a box of them off the shelf, but it was only to point out the ingredients that he didn’t approve of; sugar and corn syrup and artificial flavoring. He bought some kind of protein powder with seaweed in it for breakfast instead.

Jared’s mom and dad had never cared about anything like that. Jared hoped some of the stuff would taste okay to him. Something about the stern set of Speight’s face as he explained about the link between something called hydrogenated oil and coronary disease told Jared to keep his mouth firmly shut, despite his fear that there might be nothing in Speight’s kitchen that he wanted to eat.

He told himself he’d get used to the food, and that when he got home, his forced stay in healthfoodland would make twinkies taste all the sweeter.

He did his best to ignore the ten-year-old staring at him from the next line over as they waited to pay. He pretended not to see the kid’s mother giving him a suspicious glare, or the way the cashier kept shooting him quick looks as she rang them through. He told himself the manager poking his head out of the office to watch them as they paid was just a coincidence.

“Alright, home again, home again,” Speight sung out on the way to the car. Jared kept his head down and pushed the cart as close to Speight’s heels as he dared. Home again. He couldn’t help thinking about his real home, about how long it had been since he’d had his dad’s homemade macaroni and cheese. It felt like years.

He tried to cheer himself up with the thought that the shopping trip was finally over, and that after that the rest of the day could only be easier, but all he could feel was a kind of gray depression.

He and Speight loaded the groceries into the car and then Speight walked with him to the cart corral to return the cart. He couldn’t even return a shopping cart without supervision.

He finally buckled himself in and leaned his head on the window. Speight was saying something, but he couldn’t find the energy anymore to listen. He just didn’t have it in him. Being in the real world again was more exhausting than he’d ever imagined it would be.

Daylight Savings Time had just ended, and it was getting dark already, though it was only 4:30. He watched a streetlamp flicker on across the parking lot. He wished it weren’t so dark, and getting so cold at night. His eyes drooped closed.

He woke up in the driveway to Speight shaking him gently. He couldn’t manage to suppress a flinch, and Speight looked concerned but let it pass without comment.

“Hey, kiddo, you wanna go inside? Take a little nap before dinner?” Jared forced himself to relax and nodded. Speight pulled back.

Jared was slow unbuckling his seatbelt, still uncoordinated and muzzy with sleep. He was just pushing his door open when Speight was suddenly right there, guiding him down out of the SUV. He didn’t really need help getting out of the car, but Speight kept a hand on his arm anyway. Maybe he was worried Jared was going to try to make a break for it in the ten feet between the car and the house.

He let Speight guide him up to his bedroom and over to the bed. He slipped off his coat and canvas loafers and crawled in as Speight drew back the covers for him.

Something in his belly fluttered a little, having to turn his back as he crawled into bed. He told himself it was just dumb animal instinct. He wasn’t in the detention center anymore. He had nothing to fear from Speight. He deliberately closed his eyes and relaxed his shoulders.

“I’ll come get you in an hour,” Speight said softly. “Sleep well kiddo.” He walked away and closed the door behind him with a quiet click. Jared found himself releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He sank gratefully beneath the waves of sleep.

*****

There was a hand on his shoulder and someone was calling his name. Jared flinched a little before he got his eyes open. He saw that it was Speight and he made himself relax again.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Speight smiled. He was sitting on the edge of Jared’s bed and he didn’t remove his hand, even though Jared was awake. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

The room was dim. All of the light had faded from the sky outside, leaving everything inside deep in shadow. The only light came from the door open to the hallway and the little nightlight in the corner. Speight’s exact expression was hard to make out.

“Is it- is it dinner time, sir?” Jared asked softly.

“Yeah,” Speight said, and rubbed his hand up and down Jared’s shoulder slowly through the blanket. “You ready to eat?”

“Yes, sir,” Jared answered, not moving at all. Speight rubbed slowly up and down his shoulder again.

“You sounded like you were having a nightmare,” he said softly. “You alright, Jared?”

Jared suddenly realized that his cheeks were wet. Something in him uncoiled. He couldn’t remember the dream, but it suddenly made more sense that Speight would be touching him. It wasn’t anything to be worried about, Speight was just trying to soothe him.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he said. Remembering himself he quickly added, “Thank you, sir.”

Speight nodded and stood. His eyes were hidden by the shadows in the room, but Jared was sure Speight was still watching him closely as he climbed out of bed.

They didn’t go to the kitchen, where the guards had sat and drank coffee with them just that morning, which now seemed a million years ago. Instead they went to the dining room. The table was set for two, but it looked like it could seat ten comfortably. There were china plates and linen napkins, heavy silverware that Jared would bet money was real silver. In the center of the table were a stack of pizza boxes and a plastic tub of salad.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got one cheese, one everything, and one pepperoni,” Speight said. His smile was bright and easy, his eyes twinkling. Jared smiled back.

“Uh, I, I like all of those, sir. I’m not a picky eater, really.”

“Good,” Speight beamed. “Don’t get used to the pizza though. I figured your first dinner here was a special occasion. It’s not the way we’ll usually be eating.”

Having seen what went into the grocery cart, Jared couldn’t say he was exactly surprised at the news.  
“Um, thank you, sir, for the pizza tonight.”

“You’re welcome. It’ll be a treat for me too.”

There was also a wine bottle on the table, and empty wine glasses at their places. He didn’t register that one of them was meant for him until Speight had started to fill the second glass.

“Sir, I-” Jared protested.

“Yes?” Speight asked, still pouring with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m, um, underage,” Jared said stupidly. He wondered if this was a test.

Speight laughed and held the glass out to him. “Just try it.”

Speight didn’t look like it was a test. Tentatively Jared reached out and took the glass.

“It’s one glass, kiddo,” Speight said. “You’ve had a long day. This’ll be nice, help you relax a little. It’ll make it easier to sleep tonight.”

Speight picked up his own glass and wafted it under his nose, then took a delicate sip. Jared wondered if he should do the same but decided he’d probably look stupid, so he just went ahead and took a tiny sip without smelling it first. It tasted horrible, strong and sour. He did his best not to make a face at it, but Speight smirked anyway.

“In my family, we started getting wine as soon as we were old enough to sit with the adults,” Speight said. “I was probably younger than you when I had my first glass.”

Jared nodded and secretly decided not to drink any more of the wine. It was gross. He couldn’t imagine choosing to drink that if you didn’t have to.

“I know it’s a special occasion,” Speight said. “But still, no pizza til you eat your greens.”

Jared had never been a big fan of salad. He sighed internally as Speight heaped a big portion on his plate. His parents never hovered over his shoulder, watching what he ate. His family almost never had dinner together, because his parents were never even home at dinner time. He guessed it was going to be kind of weird, actually having someone around who cared what he ate and wanted him to finish his vegetables.

The salad was spinach or something. It got bunched up in Jared’s throat, and he finally gave in and tried the wine again because he needed something to wash it down. It was just as gross the second time.

“Uh, can I have some water, sir?” Jared asked when his mouth was clear.

“Finish your wine first, Jared,” Speight said easily.

“Sir, I, uh, I don’t like how it tastes. I’m sorry.”

“Not surprising. Wine is an acquired taste,” Speight answered. “But you’ll never get used to it if you don’t start somewhere. And I really think it’ll help you get to sleep tonight. After that nap you had I don’t want you laying awake half the night. We’ve got work tomorrow, big day, you need to be fresh and rested for it. You want to make the best first impression you can, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Jared mumbled, and choked down a big gulp of the wine. He guessed if he had to drink it, it was best to just get it over with. Speight beamed at him.

He alternated between gross bites of salad and gross mouthfuls of wine as quickly as he could without spitting any of either back on the table. By the time he’d finished, his eyes were watering.

“Good job,” Speight said, and then, looking more closely at Jared, added with concern, “Were they really that bad?”

Jared shrugged, feeling both glad that Speight noticed, and unhappy that he’d had to finish them both before Speight realized how much trouble he was having.

“Your parents never even let you taste wine before?” Speight asked.

“No, sir. And we, uh, never ate a lot of salad or anything, either.”

Speight frowned in disapproval.

“I’ll get you some water,” was all he said, but Jared felt almost like he’d just betrayed his family.

Speight disappeared into the kitchen, and by the time he came back with a glass of water a couple minutes later, Jared was feeling weird. His face was hot, and his thoughts seemed slow.

“So, what kind of pizza do you want?” Speight asked.

“Cheese, sir?” Jared answered. He thought the words came out slightly slurred, and told himself to concentrate if he had to speak again.

Speight put a slice of cheese pizza on Jared’s plate, then one on his own. Jared watched him pick up a knife and fork and start to work on his pizza. He’d always used his hands to eat pizza, but he guessed if Speight used silverware then he should too.

The fork and knife seemed unwieldy in his hands, and he kept scratching his plate and making a horrible screeching noise. He glanced at Speight every time he did, but Speight was always grinning, so he tried not to worry about it. By the time he’d eaten one piece he was certain he was drunk. He thought he might still be a little hungry, but he didn’t want to try to eat another slice. He’d already almost dumped his first one into his lap three times. It was embarrassing.

“Ready to clear the table?” Speight asked. Jared squinted at him and nodded.

“Yes, sir,” he said, enunciating clearly. He pushed his chair back and stood, and had to grab his chair to steady himself. The whole room spun dizzily around for a second.

“Oh no,” Speight laughed, “I’m afraid you’ve proven to be a total lightweight, Jared.”

Jared smiled back at him uneasily.

“How bout I give you a hand with the table tonight, okay?” Speight said, stacking their plates and gathering up their silverware. “You grab our glasses and I’ll get the rest of it.”

Jared nodded and fumbled his numb fingers around each glass. He carried them in seperate hands, so there wasn’t any chance he’d smash them together, and he walked very carefully into the kitchen. Speight pointed out where to put them in the dishwasher. Jared slowly and carefully settled them one by one. When he was finished he let out a sigh of relief that sounded a lot louder than he’d meant it to.

“What?” Speight asked, grinning.

“I was so afraid I would break them, sir,” Jared blurted.

Speight laughed. “How about we do something easy, like watch some TV until bedtime?” he said.

Jared nodded and followed him into the living room, where he had a big plush couch and a wide screen TV. Jared eyed the armchairs flanking the sofa, but Speight grabbed his arm and guided him to the couch, then plopped down next to him. The sudden change in height, combined with the bouncing of the cushions, made his head spin a little.

Speight turned the TV on and relaxed back into the couch, stretching one arm along the back of it behind Jared’s head. He flipped through the channels for a while, seeming to go awfully fast, but maybe it was just Jared who was thinking extra slow. Finally Speight settled on an episode of Friends. Jared had to concentrate harder than he should have to follow the show. Things kept happening that he was certain weren’t that complicated, but for some reason nothing seemed to connect together right. It was like watching TV in a dream. Speight seemed to be following it just fine, laughing along with the studio audience and occasionally sending Jared sidelong glances of amusement. Jared tried his best to return them. He didn’t want Speight thinking he was too stupid to follow along.

Soon Jared’s eyes began getting heavier and heavier. He hoped vaguely that Speight had stopped sending him looks, because he couldn’t even fake paying attention anymore. He caught his head actually nodding and widened his eyes, trying to stay awake. Somehow they just ended up drifting back down again.

He woke up to find that he’d slumped onto Speight’s shoulder and a new episode was starting.

“Hey,” Speight said gently. “Ready for bedtime, kiddo?” He was looking down at Jared, his eyes soft and amber. He smelled good, some kind of expensive cologne.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled, prying himself woozily up off of Speight. “Sorry sir, I...” he gestured at Speight’s shoulder. Speight’s lips curled fondly.

“Don’t worry about it. That’s pretty much what I get for the wine I made you drink. C’mon. Time for bed.”

Speight walked him to his room and pointed out his toothbrush and toothpaste. He drew back the shower curtain and pointed out where there was shampoo in the shower stall and deodorant in the medicine cabinet for Jared to use in the morning. Jared nodded and turned to find himself brushing against the towel bar. He couldn’t resist running a hand over it. The towels were about as different from the thin scratchy gray towels in juvie as apples were from oranges. His new towels were thick and light blue and perfectly matched the plush bathmats. Maybe the room had already been decorated this way, but Jared couldn’t shake the feeling that Speight had gone out and bought all of this for him, never even having met him. He wondered how much money Speight had spent on him so far. He couldn’t believe anyone could be so generous, even if they were rich.

“Like them?” Speight asked, laughing at him.

Jared smiled up at him sunnily. He didn’t mind if Speight laughed at him.

“They’re so nice,” he said.

“ _Sir_ ,” Speight corrected, reaching out and poking Jared on the nose with a grin. “You _always_ call me ‘sir.’”

“Yes, sir,” Jared said quickly.

“And everybody else at the office too, okay? Everybody is ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am,’ no exceptions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good boy,” Speight grinned. “You are such a good boy, Jared,” he said happily. “I can’t believe-” he cut himself off and just shook his head, still smiling. “One glass of wine and I feel like I’m drunk,” he murmured to himself.

Jared rubbed his hand across the towels one more time. “I think I am drunk. Sir,” he slurred carefully.

“I know you are,” Speight laughed.

Jared looked around the room again. He didn’t think he’d ever get sick of looking around a place like this, one that had real color and beauty and care put into it.

“Oh, it is so time for bed for you, kiddo,” Speight groaned.

  
Speight had been right about the wine. Jared fell asleep easily.

He woke up confused. He must have been having a nightmare. He’d dreamed someone was touching him, not hurting him, but running their hands over him. The mattress shifted behind him and his heart almost stopped, but he told himself not to panic. He had no idea where he was, and he thought there had to be a reason he wasn’t alone, if only he could remember. He knew he wasn’t in juvie, but it didn’t smell like home either, so he wasn’t in his bed.

It came back to him in a rush, just as a hand ran gently up and down his curved spine.

“Hey, Jared, you awake?” Speight’s voice ghosted over his ear. Jared told himself he should uncurl and act like nothing was wrong, because probably Speight had a good reason for being there.

He couldn’t make himself uncurl. He couldn’t make himself speak.

“Alright,” Speight murmurmed. “It’s alright.”

Jared remembered he’d had a nightmare earlier that Speight had had to wake him up from. He thought that must have happened again.

Speight wormed his hand up the back of Jared’s shirt and kept rubbing his back soothingly. His hand was soft and warm. It was weird, but it didn’t feel bad, and Jared told himself not to worry, that Speight was just trying to bring him down from a nightmare. He told himself he should say something to let Speight know it was okay, but he still couldn’t bring himself to speak. He would stay curled up until Speight went away again. Once he was alone he could calm himself down easily. It was something he’d learned how to do in juvie.

Speight pulled his hand out from under Jared’s shirt and Jared had a second of relief, thinking Speight was going to leave him alone. The sheets rustled and the mattress shifted behind him. Then Speight curled himself closer around Jared, pressed tight against his back. Speight’s arm snaked around Jared’s waist, and his questing hand pressed in until he was cupping Jared’s groin. There was something pressing into the small of his back. Speight began to rock against him, gently but firmly.

Jared let out a small moan of protest before he could stop himself, and Speight stilled.

“Shhh,” he whispered in Jared’s ear. “It’s okay.”

He started rocking again, but now he kept up a steady stream of words as he did it.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Shh, Jared, it’s okay.”

Jared clamped his lips shut and breathed heavily through his nose. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

For a while Speight tried to stir interest in Jared by fondling his groin gently. Jared got half-hard, but he was too scared to harden all the way, and as Speight got closer to finishing he forgot about Jared. He rocked faster, spoke faster. His breath came in harsh pants, and his words didn’t make any sense any more. “Shh. Jared. Jared. Oh God. Jared. Oh shh. Oh God.”

Jared squeezed his eyes shut, and bit the inside of his cheek hard. This wasn’t supposed to happen to him. He needed to live with Speight to get himself _away_ from the boys who wanted to do this to him. He wasn’t supposed to have this happen here. It wasn’t fair.

Speight shuddered hard against him and pulled him back tightly. He pressed his sweaty face into Jared’s neck with a groan. Something warm and wet began to soak through Jared’s shirt at the small of his back.

Eventually, Speight kissed Jared’s cheek and pulled himself away.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, from somewhere over Jared.

Jared kept his eyes shut tight and nodded slowly. He kept them closed as Speight climbed out of his bed and left the room.

Long after Speight had gone, Jared lay awake with tears running down his face. All he could think was that it wasn’t fair; that wasn’t supposed to happen. He had no idea what he was supposed to do next.

  
Speight woke him at six the next morning, poking his head in the door to say “Rise and shine, sleepyhead. Shower and get dressed. Breakfast’s in twenty.”

Jared nodded and stumbled out of bed under Speight’s watchful eye. Speight was wearing black silk pajamas and had a towel slung over his shoulder. He was smiling cheerfully, and he didn’t look like the kind of person who just... Jared shut that thought down quickly. He didn’t want to think about that. He had other things to worry about. Speight had mentioned the day before what a hardass his boss was, had warned Jared he needed to be on his very best behavior.

“He’ll have no problem kicking you out of the office if you get in the way, and if that happens it’ll be hard for me to keep you as my apprentice. They might have to send you back to juvie,” Speight had said, and Jared had nodded solemnly and sworn to himself that he wouldn’t do anything, not a single insignificant little thing, wrong. That was easy to say yesterday.

But really, he’d gone over and over it in his mind before he’d managed to fall asleep again, and he didn’t see how anything had really changed. He still had to make this work, at the very least until he could get word to Pellegrino that something was wrong. His choices were still either juvie or Speight’s house, and so far, despite what had happened, Speight’s house was probably the better choice.

He looked over the clothes they’d bought yesterday, all still in their bags because he’d never gotten around to hanging them last night. There were a lot of them. He focused his worry on the immediate problem of figuring out what he was going to wear. He’d pretty much lived his life in jeans and a t-shirt. He had to pick out a shirt, pants, _and_ a tie. He had no idea how to even tie a tie, much less pick the right one. He decided that maybe if he gave himself a little more time to wake up, things would become clearer.

There was a clothes hamper in the corner of the bathroom, and he threw his balled up pajamas into it without touching them more than he had to. Speight had bought him plenty more. He didn’t need to put those ones on again.

He took a nice hot shower, reveling in the privacy and water pressure. He vowed to himself that he would do everything possible to avoid ever having to take a communal shower again. _Stay out of juvie or die trying_ , he repeated to himself. _This is better than juvie, no matter what_ , he repeated to himself.

The bags looked just as overwhelming with his hair dripping and his skin steaming, but he told himself to start with the basics. He dug out underwear and socks, then one pair of khaki dress pants that he remembered Speight saying would be good office wear. He hunted around until he found a plain white collared shirt and put that on too. Then he remembered the undershirts Speight had bought him, took off the collared shirt, and layered it back on over the undershirt. That was how that worked, right? He didn’t want to go out there only for Speight to tell him he did it wrong. He didn’t want Speight thinking about him getting dressed. He was doing fine on his own.

He found the bag with the ties and pulled them out, lined them up on the dresser and held them up at his throat, one by one. They all looked the same to him. Staring at his neck just made the black collar stand out more and more. He tried pulling at the collar of his shirt, but it just wouldn’t go high enough. He wondered if he could tie the tie around it, but knew it would be against the rules. The collar wasn’t just there to control, it was also there to warn regular people what he was. Nervous and frustrated, he grabbed a tie, hung it around his neck, and crept out to the kitchen.

Speight smiled at him from over a cup of coffee.

“Breakfast’s on the table,” he nodded, watching Jared. Jared looked and found a single glass of pink liquid that could only be the protein shake stuff Speight bought yesterday. It was a major effort not to wrinkle his nose even before he tasted it. He took a sip and put it back down.

“I’m, uh, I’m not really hungry, sir,” he said. Speight’s smile disappeared.

“Breakfast’s the most important meal of the day, Jared.”

Jared considered his options. As disgusting as the protein drink was, it wasn’t worth making waves for. It wasn’t like the food in juvie wasn’t even worse.

Jared picked up the protein shake and took another sip. It was slimy and disgusting. It was supposed to taste like strawberry but it just tasted gross instead. He took a deep breath and drank it all. It immediately tried to lurch back up his throat again, but he swallowed it down hard.

Speight came over and put a paternal hand on his shoulder. “Was it that bad?” he asked.

Jared swallowed against another lurch of his stomach.

“I kinda like them myself.”

“I’m just... not very hungry, sir.”

“Nervous about your first day with the team?” Speight’s eyes softened. “Don’t worry, okay? Nothing will go wrong, I promise.” He reached out and began tying Jared’s tie slowly. “I mean, I know we don’t know each other that well yet, but Jared, I’m telling you kiddo, I have a really good feeling that this is gonna work out. Just do your best and you’ll be fine. Okay?” Speight cupped his cheek and crouched a little to look into his eyes.

“Yes, sir,” Jared answered. It felt like there were butterflies violently drowning in his stomach but from somewhere Jared dredged up a weak smile.

“Alright. Brush your teeth and do whatever else you gotta do. We’ll leave when you’re ready, get in there early and impress the boss.”


	3. Chapter 3

Floor after floor of cold glass and concrete reared up in front of them. Behind the grey building the sky was a vivid blue. Jared didn’t _feel_ like a troublemaker, but he was pretty sure that was all anybody in this building would see when they looked at him. The early morning breeze blew stiffly into his face, and he shivered. He wanted to pick up his feet and start running in the opposite direction.

The guards at the security desk gave them both the hairy eyeball as they entered. It was only Speight’s presence at his side that kept him moving forward. He headed them towards a line of metal detectors and some kind of x-ray machine for briefcases. This building meant business when it came to security.

“Hey guys, this is Jared. He’s my new apprentice, so be gentle with him, huh?” Speight smiled. Neither guard smiled back. Jared thought about the guards sneering at him his first day in the detention center, and wondered if there was something innately hateable about him.

He used to think he was likeable enough, but now he couldn’t count on both hands the number of people, from policemen to the boys in juvie to the doctor in the infirmary, who’d looked at him with disdain, if not outright hatred, from the first time they laid eyes on him.

Jared was glad the lobby was empty when his collar set off the metal detector. The guards motioned him aside and ran a wand over him. They both kept their eyes fixed on him like he was waiting for his chance to set off a bomb or something the whole time. Once they were satisfied that he wasn’t armed, there was a device they had to activate behind the security desk. Speight made sure Jared understood that once it was on he couldn’t go out past the security desk without getting zapped, and together they watched the back of the guard’s head as he punched in the code. Speight had the same device at his front door, Jared had seen him deactivate it so they could leave that morning. Jared guessed he’d be used to it in no time, but he hated watching it be activated, here or at Speight's. He tensed every time, though he _knew_ it wouldn't zap him.

“You’re all set,” said one guard. The other guard just stared at Jared silently.

“Thanks, Mike,” Speight said, with another smile that wasn't returned.

They were finally getting into the elevator when a voice called out “Hold the door.” For a second Jared thought he’d done something wrong and the guards were calling them back. He searched the last few seconds for anything he could’ve screwed up already. Maybe there was a rule against him taking the elevator. Then he saw a handsome black man in a suit striding towards them.

“That’s the boss,” Speight muttered from the side of his mouth, pushing the Door Open button. Jared unfroze a little, but his heart kept thumping like a rabbit’s. He shuffled slightly closer to Speight to give the approaching man plenty of space. Speight cast an arm around his shoulders, and Jared forced himself not to squirm away.

The boss was solidly built and moved like a force to be reckoned with. His head was shaved bald, and he had a neatly trimmed beard and mustache circling his mouth. His lips were set in a stern line, and he didn’t bother saying ‘thank you’ when he boarded the elevator. He just smoothly turned to face front. He waited for the doors to close before speaking to Speight.

“This is him?”

“This is Jared Padalecki, sir,” Speight answered, giving Jared’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“Hello Jared,” the man glanced down. His dark eyes were piercing. “I’m Special Agent Whitfield. I’m the agent in charge of Agent Speight’s team. I’m sure he’s told you that I’m the one who decides whether there’s a place for you here or not.”

Jared nodded quickly and tried to convey in the gesture that he knew everything he could possibly need to already and didn’t need a single second more of Whitfield’s time.

Whitfield looked at Speight. “You have the file on him now?”

“Yes, sir. Do you want a look at it?”

“Please.”

“I’ll have it on your desk within the hour.” After a few seconds of ringing silence, Speight volunteered, “I thought I’d put him next to me, get him started on reading the handbooks this morning,”

“That’s fine,” Special Agent Whitfield grunted. Then he looked at Jared again. “How old are you, Jared?”

“I’m fourteen, sir,” Jared just barely kept himself from stuttering. Whitfield looked him over obviously and his eyebrows furrowed, but whatever in particular he found wrong with Jared, he kept it to himself.

Whitfield waited until they’d exited the elevator to speak again, and when he did he faced Jared head on, halting all their forward progress and pinning him with a gaze that could have made a block of marble squirm.

“We do very important work in this office, Jared. I hope you realize that. Agent Speight seems very confident that he can find a way for you to make a positive contribution, but I want to make sure this is clear: people’s lives hang in the balance of what we do, and I don’t tolerate anyone who gets in the way of that. There are enough obstacles to our investigations already. We don’t need one in our own office. If I think you’re getting in the way of our work, I _will_ withdraw my permission for you to be here. This is my team. Period. Agent Speight won’t be able to get your place here back if you fail to impress me. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Jared mumbled. Whitfield’s hand came at him and he flinched lightly before realizing the man just wanted to shake on it. His face reddened and he quickly grasped it, in agony at the knowledge that his palm was sweating like he'd just run five miles. Whitfield’s grip was solid but not painful. That was a relief, at least; after that warning he’d half expected it to be bone-crushing.

“Welcome then.” Whitfield gave him one more stern look. He turned to Speight and ordered, “Get me that file, and then take a look at the one Cassidy put together for you. She said it should have everything you need to get caught up on the progress we made yesterday.”

“Yes, sir,” Speight answered.

Whitfield turned and disappeared through a door at the front of the room, closing it halfway behind him. The door bore a simple metal plaque that read ‘Special Agent Charles M. Whitfield.’ Jared hoped that Whitfield would spend most of this time in there. He thought it might make things a little less nervewracking.

The rest of the office wasn’t comforting. Everything looked new and modern and state of the art. Jared wondered despairingly just how he was supposed to be fitting in there, when he belonged in high school and couldn’t even manage to tie a tie for himself. In juvie he’d felt like a goldfish in a shark tank, but this office made him feel like the algae on the tank’s walls.

*****

Jared had been given a stack of manuals and booklets a foot high to work his way through, though Speight had assured him that most of the stuff in them would never come up in day to day work. He'd pointed out the sections Jared should really study, and told him to skim the rest. He'd been going on that for about half an hour when he suddenly sensed a presence above him and looked up.

“Hi,” said a man with the most beautiful face Jared had ever seen. Jared gaped at him, fingers gone lax on his brand new copy of ‘GIS Policy Guidelines: An Overview.’

“Jared, this is Agent Ackles; Ackles, my apprentice, Jared,” Speight said.

“Nice to meet you Jared. Welcome to the team,” Agent Ackles said with a bright smile.

“Uh. Thank you, sir,” Jared murmured, still staring. “It’s nice to meet you too, sir.”

“You should have a lot in common, since most people would say you’re both too young to be here,” Speight said to Agent Ackles with a smirk. The words could have been playful, but to Jared, there seemed to be an undercurrent of something not so playful.

Agent Ackles snorted in an unamused way. “Anybody ever tell you jealousy was an unattractive emotion?” he asked Speight, before turning his attention back to Jared. “Ask him which one of us has been here longer. I’ll give you a hint-”

“Don’t you have work you should be doing, hotshot?” Speight cut him off. “Why are you over here harrassing me, when you could be singlehandedly solving our case like always?”

“Aw, Richard, I know it’s a team effort,” Ackles answered, appearing to force a smile. “Which is exactly why I thought I should introduce myself to the newest member of the team.”

“He’s not going to be out in the field or anything. So really, Ackles, don’t worry about him. Worry about your own work instead, so we don’t have a repeat of last week. I know you and Whitfield have that family connection, but even he won’t keep cutting you slack if you keep advocating to lock up the innocent and let the murderers go free. That’s actually the exact opposite of the way he likes to do things.”

“Fuck you,” Ackles snapped, eyes suddenly going sharp. It made his face look a little older, but no less handsome. “I was doing my job, following the evidence. Whitfield knows that, and so do you.”

“Alright, sorry,” Speight answered, holding his hands up. “Didn't mean to hit a nerve. That _was_ a pretty screwed up case.”

Ackles relaxed. “If we never have to deal with another paranoid computer programmer with a thing for blackmail again, it’ll be too soon,” he agreed.

“I still don’t see how he thought he’d get away with it longterm,” Speight mused. “I mean, he was good, but he had to know he’d push it too far sometime. He was paranoid enough to rig his _bathroom_ with security cameras, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to stop blackmailing ruthless people once he’d made his first million?”

Ackles shrugged. “Greed made him stupid.”

“Really stupid,” Speight snorted.

Jared didn’t know anything about the case they were talking about, so he mostly studied Richard Speight and Agent Ackles. They seemed friendly enough now, but he thought there had been some real animosity in their eyes before. He wondered what Ackles had done wrong on the case, and whether Speight was really jealous of him, or didn’t like him for some other reason. He wondered if it was unusual for them to snap at each other, or whether there was a lot of discord on the team. The tension springing up so suddenly had put him even more on edge than he’d already been, if that were even possible, and he hoped that Agent Ackles kept himself well clear of Speight and Jared. Nice as he was to look at, the last thing Jared needed was more conflict in his life.

*****

Jared had been working his way through the handbook for another twenty minutes, when the squad room door flew open and a blonde woman in a black pantsuit staggered in. She carried a stack of magazines up to her chin in one arm, and had another bundle of them tucked under the other arm.

“Who’s up for a little light reading?” she called.

“Oh Cassidy, no,” Ackles groaned from his desk.

“Oh Ackles, _yes_.”

The blonde woman, Cassidy, began dealing out magazines to Ackles with exaggerated glee.

“Our vic answered an ad from one of these. We’re looking for the words ‘cherry red Ferrari’-”

“Cherry red Ferrari?”

“It’s a code, Ackles. You’ve heard of codes before, right?”

“Oh _yeah_. I see. I get it now. This case is like a bad spy novel. Let me guess. Our vic answered the ad using the alias Mrs. Moneypenny...”

“Are you calling the Bond series ‘bad spy novels?’” a new voice entered the conversation. Jared looked to the door to see a tall thin man with dark skin and short dark hair. The guy spotted Jared before Ackles could answer him.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“My new apprentice? Jared?” Speight jumped in, amused.

“Oh! Wow. He came today? He looks... young. How old is this kid?” He seemed to be asking Agent Cassidy, who was studying Jared with both eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“He’s fourteen,” Speight said to the new guy before turning to smirk at Cassidy. “I was wondering how long it would take you to notice him.”

“I would’ve in another ten seconds” Agent Cassidy protested. She didn’t look as angry as Agent Ackles had when _he_ was arguing with Speight, but she did look irritated.

“Jared, that observant young man is Agent Hodge, and the *ahem* other one is Agent Cassidy. Team, this is Jared.”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes at Speight.

“Welcome to the team, Jared,” Hodge said quickly.

“Yeah. Welcome,” Cassidy echoed, still looking at Speight, not him.

“C’mon guys fill me in. Who's using the alias Mrs. Moneypenny? Is it you Ackles?” Hodge joked uneasily.

“The vic, apparently,” Jensen jumped in. “Cassidy, you wanna explain a little bit?”

Cassidy finally stopped glaring and turned her attention from Speight to the other two men. Jared ducked his head down and tried to keep reading. The book of guidelines Speight had given him was long and dry. He thought he had a pretty good vocabulary for his age, but that didn’t help much when the subject matter was so boring he couldn’t focus long enough to get any meaning from it. Unfortunately, it was one of the ones Speight said he should actually study.

He tuned out the explanation he didn’t have the background to understand, and the mild bickering that continued, grateful that the team all seemed more focused on each other than on the new teammate in their midst.

*****

He was equal parts exhausted and wired riding back to Speight’s house in the car that evening. It had been a really long day. They’d gotten to work before eight, and hadn’t left until after five. The hours had crawled by, stretched out by his deep fear of screwing up. He’d been thrown into a situation where he couldn’t tell what exactly he should and shouldn’t do, and until he figured that out, he was constantly nervous. Mostly he just kept his head down and tried to fade into the background.

Speight’s team seemed smart and curious as cats. Even after they stopped talking to him or about him he could feel their eyes on him. None of them had seemed unwelcoming exactly. In fact, the couple of times he’d accidentally caught the eye of Agent Ackles he’d been given a smile. Hodge had never smiled at him, but he hadn’t sent him any dirty looks either. He'd mostly just seemed curious. Cassidy had seemed the most perturbed by his presence there, but he wondered if that was just reflected hostility from her feelings towards Speight. And thankfully, the few times Whitfield had emerged from his office, he’d ignored Jared completely. He wondered how long that would keep up, and kind of hoped it lasted forever.

By the time lunch rolled around, he thought he’d succeeded in fading into the background. Speight was the only one who’d said a word to him from lunchtime until quitting time, and all of the surreptitious looks seemed to have stopped. They were all wrapped up in the case, which had started breaking around 11 o’clock, after some kind of financial discovery Hodge made while going through the victim’s banking history.

It shouldn’t have been as stressful as it was, just sitting and watching them work. But it really was. The worst part was that now he had to go home again with Speight, and instead of being able to relax because the hard part was over, he just felt a churning low in his gut starting up again. He just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for ten hours straight, but he couldn’t even look forward to bed. He was too worried about what would happen there tonight.

Nothing he hadn't expected, as it turned out.

*****

Jared had never been inside Whitfield’s office before, though in the five days he’d worked at GIS, he’d examined it closely from the outside. Speight had begun training him to fill out GIS paperwork, and there was his schoolwork, but even so there had been a lot of hours Jared spent sitting at his desk with nothing to do. When they were deep into the case, everybody, including Speight, seemed to forget all about everything else. He knew the squad room inside and out already. He knew the number of panels in the ceiling, and could draw from memory the exact shape of the stain on the carpet to the left of his desk.

He alternated constantly between boredom and anxiety. Pellegrino hadn’t contacted him yet, and as many times as he told himself it had only been five days, if he let himself think about it too hard he started to panic.

It seemed like he had to keep himself from panicking about something constantly. Then, occasionally something would happen that would justify panicking, and he’d feel numb, like a mouse facing a cobra. For example, he thought he probably should be panicking about being called into Whitfield’s office, but mostly all he felt was curiously disconnected. It was the same feeling he had at night, when Speight...

He looked quickly out the window of the office. When the blinds were up, Whitfield’s office had a clear view of the squad room. Jared was relieved to see that when either Agent Ackles or Speight were seated, his own desk was mostly blocked.

The squad room was set up with two rows of three desks each running lengthwise down it, facing each other. At the front two desks were Agent Ackles and Agent Cassidy. In the middle were Speight and Hodge. Jared faced an empty desk at the back. In between each of the desks enough space was left to walk. Everything in the squad room was sleek and modern and predominantly light: grey and white and clear.

Whitfield’s office had more of a traditional, heavy feel, and was dominated by dark shades of green. Unlike the squad room, which at times had a feeling of uncontrolled chaos, Whitfield’s office was neat as a pin. His desk top was clear, with the exception of his computer, an empty black wire inbox and a carefully stacked outbox, a big mug of pens and pencils, and a forest green leather desk blotter. The desk itself was dark, smooth wood and looked murderously heavy.

Whitfield had gestured him to sit, and then left, saying he’d be back in a few minutes. Jared had sat and watched him leave the office and approach Agent Ackles’ desk. Jared wondered why he’d called him into his office only to leave him there and go talk with Agent Ackles.

He turned around and forced himself to relax into his chair. Whitfield had said he just wanted to talk for a little bit and get to know Jared better. All he had to do was just keep his mouth shut and not panic. It was not a torture chamber, it was an office. He could handle this; he wasn’t going to mess it up.

Whitfield came back. Agent Ackles followed him, carrying another chair. Jared moved aside to let Ackles settle in, and then surreptitiously watched the man sit. Agent Ackles was still the most beautiful man Jared had ever seen. He did his best to ignore it, but it was hard with the man sitting right next to him.

Whitfield moved efficiently around to his side of the desk. There was something relaxed about the way he moved inside his own office. Jared wished that didn’t just make him feel even more anxious.

“You don’t need to be nervous, Jared,” Whitfield said. “This isn’t an interrogation. You know, two years ago, when I was given my own team, I made sure to interview each member of it personally before I brought them aboard. Personalities are important to me. More important than just the proper credentials. It's not enough for everyone to work well, to be a truly great team they have to work well together. I’ve been on my back foot since the beginning with your situation. I have no personal experience with the YOAP, and Agent Speight has only been with us for six months. Hodge and Cassidy have been with me for two years, since the beginning. Jensen, Agent Ackles, has been with me for one and a half, and I don’t know if you’re aware, but I’ve known him a lot longer than that.” Jared nodded slightly. Speight had told him that Ackles was Whitfield's cousin by marriage.

“I trust them with my life and I know the feeling’s mutual. I’m not sure Agent Speight has succeeded in integrating himself into this team as smoothly yet, and that has probably made me more reluctant to interfere in what he’s trying to do with you, your rehabilitation. But I don’t plan to continue being such a distant observer in the future. The fact is that if you’re in my squad room day in and day out, you’re my responsibility as much as any other member of my team. Do you have any questions about that?”

Jared bit his lip. “No, sir.”

Whitfield chuckled. “You still look pretty nervous.”

Jared told himself not to react, but he tensed anyway. In juvie, when people laughed at him it had never been a good sign, only the prelude to humiliation and sometimes pain.

Whitfield looked at him closely and got very serious, very quickly. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“I’m fine, sir,” Jared answered. He kept his voice even and his eyes on Whitfield’s.

“Listen Jared, if there’s ever anything wrong, or you need some kind of help, you shouldn’t be afraid to come to me. I’m a law enforcement officer and my duty is to the people. You’re one of the people, Jared, youthful offender or not. Anything you have to tell me doesn’t have to leave this room, but if there’s anything I can help you with, anything at all, all you have to do is tell me.”

Jared clenched his fists below the level of the desk and thought of what a relief it would be to tell somebody the truth. Then he reminded himself that he had a plan, and that nothing was worth risking being sent back to the detention center. Speight had already done the worst that Jared figured he would do, and it wasn’t that bad. It was up to Jared to fix his life for himself, not lay himself open to a man he wasn’t even sure liked him and beg for help.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it, but really, I’m okay. I feel very lucky to have this opportunity, sir, my life is really... it’s really improved, sir. Everything’s fine.”

“Improved from what?” Ackles piped up. Jared jumped a little; he’d forgotten he was there. He ordered himself to pull it together and answered steadily, “Improved from the detention center, sir.”

“Ah,” Ackles answered, with a look of understanding. “That’s not saying much though, is it?”

“No, sir,” Jared admitted.

“What do you like to do in your free time, Jared? Do you play any sports?” Whitfield asked. Jared studied his face, but he couldn’t find anything but honest curiosity. There didn’t _seem_ to be any reason not to answer.

“Uh. No, sir. I like to read, sir.”

“You have a favorite book?”

“No, sir. Not really, sir.”

“Well what kind of books do you like? Adventure? Mystery? Comic books?” Agent Ackles jumped in, smiling.

“All of them. I, uh, I used to read a lot, sir. Anything I could find at the library, and whatever my parents bought me.”

“Where do your parents live?” asked Whitfield.

“Springfield, sir? I- I mean, They must still be there, sir. We moved there when I was ten, for my sister, and I can’t think of anything that would make them leave.”

“For your sister?”

“She’s got leukemia, sir. The treatment center’s there.”

“I see. I’m sorry, Jared. How is she doing now?”

“I- She was back in the hospital when I left, sir. Her remission... it only lasted about a year.”

“You haven’t heard an update recently?”

“Uh, no, sir. Not recently, sir.” Jared twisted at the fabric of his pants, then made himself stop. If Ackles looked down he could probably see it, and Jared didn’t want to arouse suspicion, even where there was nothing to be suspicious about.

“When was the last time you heard from your family, Jared?”

“At my- at my sentencing, sir.”

“Which was...”

“About a month ago, now, sir.” It felt like a year.

“And you haven’t heard from them at all in that time? No phone calls, no letters?” Whitfield exchanged a glance with Agent Ackles. Jared couldn’t read it, and his heart picked up. He began babbling.

“I... No, sir. I don’t even know who told them I entered the YOAP. Someone must’ve. My lawyer, or the warden, somebody. I’m sure they know by now, I just... couldn’t tell them myself sir. I-” He cut himself off.

“Why couldn’t you tell them yourself?" Whitfield asked after a minute. "Didn’t you have phone privileges, visitor privileges?” He looked honestly disturbed.

“I- I don’t... I wrote them from juvie, sir, but then I hadn’t gotten anything back by the time I left and they, uh, they didn’t come on visitor’s day.” He shrugged and fixed his eyes on the desk. “Maybe they wrote and the mail was just too slow to reach me,” he offered. “They... it was all really hard on them, but I know they’d have written back, so something must have gotten mixed up somewhere.” He took a deep breath and told himself to shut up before he fell apart.

“Anyway, it’s too late now,” he said, as easily as he could manage.

“And why is it too late now?” Whitfield asked.

At least that was an easy question. In his week in solitary, Jared had had very little to occupy his mind and a whole lot of things he needed distraction from. He’d lost count of the number of times he'd read the YOAP handbook and brochures, and many helpful phrases from them were etched into his brain.

“Because the program ‘emphasizes isolation from past influences,’ sir: family, friends, anybody that’s part of the offender’s past and might ‘encourage recidivism.’ If anyone from my past contacts me I’m required to tell Agent Speight immediately. And I guess it’s up to him whether I can answer them back.”

“I see. But if you could speak to your parents, wouldn’t you like to?”

Jared frowned down at the desk. If his parents didn’t _want_ to talk to him, he wasn’t sure he could handle learning that right now, but of course they did. They were his parents, and they loved him, and they'd never blamed him for what happened.

“I could guarantee you wouldn’t get in trouble for it.” Whitfield said. “I’d clear it with Agent Speight first. What do you think?”

Jared chanced a glance up. “I don’t know, sir,” he murmured.

“Well, this isn’t a one time only offer,” Whitfield studied him and looked grave. “You can think about it and let me know.”

“Are you afraid they’re angry at you? I mean, you know your parents, we don’t.” Agent Ackles asked, brow furrowed. “You can tell us the truth, Jared. We’ll trust your judgement on this. If you think it’s a bad idea...”

He thought about taking the easy route, just telling them his parents hated him after what had happened. He couldn’t. He’d been doing a lot of disgusting things recently, but lying about his parents wasn’t going to be one of them. Until the very last day in court, they were still assuring him things would be alright, they’d find a way to get him out. He didn’t know why they hadn’t been able to reach him, but he couldn't believe that it was because they’d chosen not to.

“No, they- they never told me they were angry, sir. They didn’t blame me for what happened. But... now that I’ve entered the program... Maybe it’s better if I don’t talk to them anyway. They didn’t want me to enter it, back during the trial when my lawyer brought it up, they said they didn’t like the sound of it.” Jared had been a little confused about their attitude at the time, but now he wondered if they hadn’t just been a lot smarter than him, and worried that someone like Speight would get their hands on him. “If I talk to them they’ll probably say I should end my contract, serve out my term in juvie. They would think that was safer.”

“You can’t tell them you prefer it to juvie?” asked Whitfield.

“They’ll want to know what was worse in juvie, sir.”

“What _was_ worse in juvie?” asked Ackles.

“Everything, sir. I’d rather die than go back there, sir,” he said calmly.

“Jared,” Ackles pressed gently. “What was going on in juvie?”

“I’d rather not talk about it, sir.” He stared at the desk fixedly.

“Alright,” Whitfield agreed grimly. “We don’t have to talk about it, and you don’t have to contact your parents. Just know that I’m available if there’s ever anything you need to discuss, or if you decide a phone call or a letter to the folks is something you’d like to do.”

“And if the boss isn’t available come to me,” Ackles added. “Or, you know, even if he is, you can still come to me. With anything.”

“Thank you, sirs.” Jared said.

“And Jared,” Ackles added with a grin. “If you want to write them and don’t want to tell them how much you hated juvie, you could just tell them all about how awesome your new job is instead.”

*****

“Thanksgiving’s coming up next week,” Speight murmured. “Whitfield, Hodge, and I are signed up to be on-call this year-” he interrupted himself to yawn. “-But if no case comes up, you and I will be having dinner at my mother’s.”

Jared stayed still, curled on his side with his back to Speight. Speight had brought him into his bedroom to sleep, instead of letting him go to his own like usual. He was already feeling scared and confused because of that, and thinking about Thanksgiving didn’t help. He’d _never_ not been with his family on Thanksgiving. It hadn’t always been the happiest holiday for them, but the idea of spending it with a house full of Speight’s family, strangers to him, made him long for his own parents and sisters.

Two years before, Katie had been too sick to leave the hospital, but they’d all gone in and spent all day with her. It had seemed like such a miserable thing at the time.

He remembered coming across his older sister Julie on his way back from the bathroom. She was sitting in a chair in the waiting room, staring at her lap. He’d sat down beside her silently, worried something had happened.

“Mom and Dad wanted to talk to her alone,” she’d said.

“About what?” he’d asked.

“I think they just had some things they wanted to tell her. Because it’s Thanksgiving.” She shrugged. Jared wanted to know why Julie looked so sad, if there really wasn’t anything going on, but he didn’t dare say anything. If there was some secret their parents had told Julie not to tell him, then she wouldn’t. He knew that much.

“Next year will be better,” she’d whispered suddenly, fiercely. There were tears in her eyes. “It has to get better than this.” She pressed her lips together. “She _has_ to get better.”

Jared remembered that he’d almost started crying himself. Just because he wasn’t as close to Katie as Julie was, didn’t mean he wouldn’t have given anything to have her healthy again, to never have to spend another holiday under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital.

“She will,” he’d said.

Julie had reached out and taken his hand, squeezed it hard. They’d sat like that for a long time, and even though the mood had been melancholy, Jared remembered thinking that it had been a long time since he’d felt that close to his oldest sister. He remembered giving thanks for that, and feeling guilty that he had something to be thankful for, when they weren't sure if Katie was dying.

The next year had been better, Katie in remission and everybody home. It had seemed like they were never going to have another Thanksgiving as miserable as the one in the hospital.

Speight curled a hand over his shoulder, pulling him out of his memory. “She lives across town, so if we get tired we can always come home early. All three of my sisters are coming with their husbands and kids, so it’s not like she’ll miss us much.”

Jared found himself being gently pulled onto his back. Speight was smiling down at him, but Jared thought there was some serious family bitterness beneath the light words. He found himself smiling back weakly, trying to comfort the man, for some reason. “Is that okay, Jared? I mean, I don’t want to force you into anything if you’re not comfortable. My mother would give me hell, but if you’d rather we could just make our own little holiday, you and I...”

“No, sir. It’s okay, I- We can do whatever you think is best, sir.”

Speight just looked at him a minute, something strange in his eye. “You are so _perfect_ ,” he burst out, suddenly. “I knew, when Mark sent me your file, and I read it, and looked at your picture. I knew you’d be worth taking a risk for. I knew people thought I was crazy for doing it. Hell, maybe they still do. But I don’t care. I don’t- you _are_ perfect, you are _perfect_ \- I’m sorry I can’t- I’m trying to be patient, but I can’t-” Speight swooped down and began kissing him sloppily. Jared, who’d never kissed anyone before, froze.

He let Speight work his tongue between his lips, let Speight taste every corner of his mouth. He kept waiting for it to get better, but it was gross from start to finish.

Finally, Speight pulled back. He was flushed and his eyes were sparkling manically. “Jared,” he panted. “I know I shouldn’t- shouldn’t tell you this now, tonight. I know it’s only been five days. But to hell with it. You don’t- you don’t need to say it back, but I _need_ to tell you,” Speight took a deep breath and looked deep into Jared’s eyes. “I love you.” Speight beamed.

He started kissing Jared enthusiastically again, and after a little while he took Jared’s hand and pushed it down under the waistband of his pajamas until Jared was touching his penis. Then Jared had that to distract him from the insane declaration. Speight hadn’t made him touch him like that before. He’d been content to just rub himself off on Jared’s back through two layers of clothes every night.

It took a lot of will power to stop himself from panicking, and Jared decided that the ‘I love you’ was really pretty unimportant compared to giving his first handjob ever without freaking out or letting Speight know how disgusting it was.

After he’d finished Speight off, Speight leaned over him and grabbed some tissues from the night stand. Instead of handing them to Jared, he seemed to take pleasure in lovingly wiping each of Jared’s fingers clean.

But the worst of all of it was still to come.

Speight threw the tissues away and came back to bed. He started kissing Jared again, a little more restrained than before, and then he reached his hand down Jared’s pants and wrapped his fingers around Jared’s penis. Jared jumped and tried to pull away, but Speight grasped his hip with his free hand and held him still.

“Shhh,” he murmured. “It’s okay. I’m going to make you feel so good, Jared.”

Jared couldn’t help himself and shook his head.

Speight just smiled down at him fondly. “Has anyone ever done this to you before?”

“No, sir,” Jared whispered, still tensing like he was going to crawl out of the bed.

“Jared,” Speight said warningly. “I know you’re scared, but I _promise_ this will feel good.”

Jared subsided, and Speight began moving his hand. Jared didn’t know where to look. Speight’s flushed face hovered in front of him, but when he closed his eyes, the image lingered on the backs of his eyelids. He felt angry that Speight wouldn’t listen to him and was just going to do this, without caring how much Jared might not want it. He felt cornered, trapped into going along with it the way he’d gone along with everything else. But the worst thing about it was that Speight was right. As much as Jared wanted to pretend it wasn’t true, as ashamed as he was to admit it to himself, on a purely physical level it did feel good. And there wasn’t anything he could tell himself to make that better.

He slept in Speight’s bed that night, with Speight’s arm curled heavily around his waist and Speight’s damp breath warming the back of his neck. He tried not to think of his family, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He'd never thought he could look back on the Thanksgiving spent in the hospital with longing, but this year, he did.

The next day he wrote to them.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry I haven’t written before. I assume someone told you that I’ve entered the YOAP and they discourage contact with everyone from your past, even your parents. There are some really nice people at the office I’m apprenticing at, though, and they convinced me it was alright to write you and let you know I’m okay.

I am doing well. I like the people here, and the work they do is amazing. They’re all very good at their jobs and they’re very good about teaching me some of the simpler parts of it. I’m also working on earning my GED, so when my sentence is over and I’m free, I’ll have a chance at a real future.

I hope you’re well, and that Katie is still in recovery and doing alright. You’ll have to give her my love and tell her I miss her and the pictures she used to draw me. Tell Julie I love her and miss her too.

I guess that’s about all I have to write. My life is very boring, really. It’s the same routine every day. I feel like I’m really an adult now, because I wake up every morning and go into the office. I’m handling things and I know someday I’ll see you all again, although I know it may be awhile.

I hope you can forgive me for getting myself into this. I never meant for things to happen this way. I never meant to make life harder for us. I hope I can make it all up to you some day, but until then, I’m trying to do the best I can every day not to cause any more worry or stress. Take care of each other and Katie and Julie, and I’ll take care of myself. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Your son Jared

He thought about asking them to write back, but in the end he decided not to. He was sure they’d know how much he wanted to hear from them without needing to be told.

Whitfield sealed the letter up and stamped it in front of him, then put it in his out tray. Jared still had a lot of trouble reading the man’s face, but he thought he detected some traces of approval there. He didn’t know why it would be important to Whitfield at all that Jared stay in touch with his family, so he figured it was probably just approval that Jared had listened to him. People liked it when they thought someone had listened to them.

*****

They were driving back from a crime scene. In the front Ackles and Cassidy bantered about the price tag for her wedding dress. Speight wasn’t there, because Whitfield had decided to send Jared out with Ackles and Cassidy and keep Speight and Hodge back at the office, researching. Jared had been nervous about it at first, but with the day almost over he could finally relax and admit that it was really nice to be out, doing something different, away from Speight’s hungry eyes. He leaned his head against the window and watched the city go by, only half an ear on the conversation Ackles and Cassidy were having.

“Is it enough to feed a starving child for a year, or are we talking more like the price of a small island nation?” Ackles questioned.

“Fuck you,” said Cassidy smoothly, taking her hand off the wheel to flip Ackles the bird. “It’s my special day. I’m gonna be a princess. You’re not going to make me feel guilty for that.”

Jared hid his smile, just in case, but he was pretty safe from attention in the back seat.

“...anyway, it’s going on my father’s tab, and let me assure you, if he weren’t paying for this dress he wouldn’t be spending it on a starving Ethiopian child or whatever either.”

“Yeah, what’d he be spending it on?”

“My sister’s rehab, probably,” Cassidy snorted.

“Last time didn’t take, huh?”

He wondered if they’d forgotten about him, or if Cassidy was just really open about her family’s dirty laundry all the time. He hadn’t known she’d had a sister. He wondered if her sister were older, like Julie, or younger, like Katie. He thought maybe Cassidy was the older sister. Something about the way she’d shepherded him around the crime scene that day just screamed ‘big sister.’ She’d been kind of bossy, but he hadn’t minded. It had actually set him at ease a little better, since it had seemed like she was paying enough attention that she’d definitely let him know before he managed to screw anything up.

“...expensive type things?” Jensen was asking, when he tuned back in.

“Jewelry type things. My mom’s.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. They could be in a pawn shop anywhere between here and New York right now. Whatever. It’s just jewelry, right...”

Jared’s sisters, Katie and Julie, would never steal jewelry or worry their family if they didn’t have to. He was never as close with them as they were with each other, but he still missed them and definitely worried about them.

After Katie got sick, Julie had started spending a lot of time at the hospital with her while he was still too young to visit and his parents were working. Once Katie got out, it seemed like everybody in the family knew more than he did about what to do for her, what was happening to her, how to make her smile. He’d felt like he was just getting to know her again, and getting used to having a family around, when her remission ended. Then she was back in the hospital, and he got used to the house being mostly his domain even faster than the first time. He fended for himself and kept himself entertained, and when anyone was home he enjoyed the company, but he never expected it.

It was a little lonely. Their house wasn’t in walking distance of any kids his age, and his parents were never around to drive him anywhere.

He’d prided himself on being self-sufficient, but it had seemed like one of the best things that had ever happened to him when Liam Fuller befriended him the first day of school. Liam had a personal driver, and he never let Jared feel weird for always needing a ride. Jared had been so grateful to finally have a real friend. He'd thought his lonely days were finally over. It made him want to go back in time and shake himself.

He didn’t know what lonely was, then. He didn’t know what it was like to really miss his family. He wanted to see their faces, wanted to see them see him. He wanted someone to say his name the way they said it, like they’d known him all his life, like he wasn’t just some amusement to them, or a total mystery.

He wanted them to explain to him that there was a good reason why they still hadn’t written back. He’d sent his letter weeks ago. Thanksgiving had come and gone. Christmas was around the corner. Why didn’t they answer? All he wanted was for them to tell him that. He thumped his head lightly against the window to shake the useless thoughts loose.

“You doin' okay back there, Jared?” Ackles asked, and Jared jerked up to see him turned around in his seat, checking on him. Cassidy’s eyes flicked to his face in the rearview mirror.

“Yes, sir. Thank you sir,” Jared answered quickly.

“Almost back,” Cassidy reassured him, then she looked to Jensen. “Hey, you think the boss’ll let us order pizza tonight?”

“I think he’s not gonna let us go home til we’ve got a lead, so he better at least feed us.”

“Excellent,” Cassidy nodded. “You think Speight’ll let you stay for that?” she asked Jared.

“I hope so, ma’am,” he answered softly. Speight was moody. It was hard to predict when he wanted to hang out with the team and ‘bond,’ and when he’d insist on taking Jared straight home.

Cassidy smiled at him, a real smile. He guessed she must have been impressed at his behavior at the crime scene. It made him want to say _I have a sister. I have two_. He wanted to tell her that his little sister shared her name: Katie, and that his older sister’s name was Julie, and that Cassidy really reminded him of her..

The words were clogged in his throat and Ackles said “Oh yeah,” and turned up the music loud. There was a song on that Jared knew he liked. A song he’d heard Jensen humming under his breath at the office. He didn’t know what it was called though. He’d never worked up the courage to ask.

 _There are a lot of things about them that you don’t know_. Jared told himself firmly. _You hardly know anything about them. There are even more things they don’t know about you._ It was better that way, too. It was the way it had to be. He leaned his head against the back of the seat and stared out the window, ignoring the agents in the front and the thick lonely feeling in his chest like a pro.

*****

Jared walked into the little office and gingerly took a seat.

“You must be Jared,” said a man Jared had never seen before.

Jared tried to keep his face blank, but inside, he was falling apart. It had been a month since he’d moved in with Speight. He’d spent most of it looking forward desperately to this day: his first meeting with his YOAP liaison. His liaison was supposed to be like a caseworker, checking in with him to make sure he was alright, but that wasn't what Jared had been waiting for. Pellegrino had told him that the monthly meetings were how they could pass information. He’d spent the entire night before the meeting awake, running over what he should say in his head, trying to decide whether he should be keeping quiet about what Speight was doing to him, or whether he should tell Pellegrino and ask for him to fix it somehow. Pellegrino was supposed to be there.

But Pellegrino wasn’t there. There was only this man. There must have been some kind of mistake.

“I hope your placement is going well for you, Jared,” the man said. “I have something here for you.”

The man held out a silver thumbdrive.

Jared numbly reached across the desk and took it.

“That should copy the entire contents of Richard Speight’s home computer,” the man said. “You’ll need some time though, so next time he leaves you home alone would be a good time for it. You just plug it into a USB port... you’ve used one of these before?”

Jared nodded dumbly.

“Good. Well, this one isn’t any different than what you’ve used before, except that once you plug it in it will automatically start copying. You don’t have to click and drag anything. Just plug it in and let it run. A message will pop up when it’s done. Unplug it, put it somewhere safe, then bring it to your next liaison meeting, next month. Do you understand?”

Jared nodded, managed to work up enough spit in his mouth to croak, “Yes, sir.”

“Alright then. You got any questions?”

“Sir, I...I don’t understand. Where is...” he trailed off, suddenly afraid to say Agent Pellegrino’s name aloud.

“Agent Pellegrino couldn’t be here today,” the man said. “I’m filling in for him. If you’ve got any messages for him, now’s the time. I promise I’ll pass them on in a timely manner.”

Jared shook his head.

“Alright, well if that’s all then-”

“Sir,” Jared blurted. He wanted to ask where Pellegrino was and why he couldn’t be there, and why this man seemed to know about the plan when Pellegrino had said he was working alone. He wanted to ask if he could speak to Pellegrino in person because there was actually something very important he needed to discuss with him.

“Yes?” the man asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I. Uh. What if I’m not ever, uh, alone at the house?”

“It’ll be a lot riskier if you have to wait until he’s asleep,” the man frowned. Jared bit his lip. Speight was bringing him into his own bedroom at night and falling asleep half on top of him.

“I don’t think that will work either, sir,” he mumbled.

“He a light sleeper?” the man asked.

Jared shrugged and nodded, unable to meet the man’s eyes.

“Well, just bide your time and wait until you’ve got a good opportunity,” the man sighed. “Agent Pellegrino wanted me to remind you that you’re no good to him if Speight gets suspicious. There’s no rush. Keep yourself below the radar, that’s the important thing. No unnecessary risks. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else?” the man asked.

Jared chewed on his lip. The man seemed to take that as his answer.

“Alright then. Put that in your pocket. Don’t lose it, don’t let Speight see it, _especially_ not after you’ve copied the hard drive.”

Jared shoved it into his pocket, hand trembling a little.

“You can go ahead and go wait on one of the chairs just outside the door for Speight to come for you,” the man said.

“Sir, I... Will Agent Pellegrino be here next month?” Jared asked desperately.

“I couldn’t tell you,” the man replied. “Why? Something wrong?”

“No, sir, nothing’s wrong,” Jared answered.

He trudged out of the office and waited for Speight to come bring him home again.


	4. Chapter 4

“She’s seven years old!” Whitfield shouted into his phone, and everyone in the squad room blanched. If he was loud enough to be heard that clearly through his half open office door, it had to be something bad. “How long, _exactly_ , were you planning on waiting?”

Hodge shot raised eyebrows at Ackles, and Ackles mouthed back a word that must have been a name, given that Hodge frowned and muttered “Who?” Ackles rolled his eyes and surreptitiously wrote something on some scrap paper.

Jared had a split second choice between staying up front for a good view of Whitfield, or getting back out of the danger zone, while also being of some small use to Ackles. It was a no-brainer. Jared started oh so coincidentally heading back for his desk from the printer at just the right moment and Ackles handed the paper off to him as if they’d planned it.

 _Heyerdahl_ , the paper read in Ackles’ professional scrawl. It meant nothing to Jared. He handed it off to Hodge without looking at him, just in case Whitfield was watching. Not that anybody would get in real trouble for gossiping, but the team liked to impress the boss by keeping themselves as informed as possible without needing to ask questions. It was a pointless game, since Whitfield wouldn’t keep anybody on his team who he didn’t feel belonged there. But everybody played it anyway, including Jared, these days.

Back at his desk, he shuffled the papers he’d printed out and glanced to the side to see Speight just bursting to ask him. He leaned over quickly, murmured “Heyerdahl, sir?”

Speight nodded sagely. “He’s the Chief of Police.” Speight muttered. “I heard he and Whitfield had a nasty territorial dispute during a case about a year before I joined GIS, definite bad blood there. If they have to work together in any capacity on this one there’s gonna be fireworks. Sounds like the man’s already lit the fuse. What was Whitfield shouting? Could you hear him?”

“Something about a seven year old girl who’s missing, sir. It sounded like Heyerdahl had waited too long to inform GIS.”

“What else?”

“I’m sorry, sir. That was all I heard.”

Speight nodded and straightened up to get a better view of Whitfield. Jared chanced a glance towards the front of the office and saw Whitfield talking into the phone, voice lower but his eyes still thunderous. Jared was glad not to be on the other end of that call. After two months on the team, Whitfield still had the ability to make his heart race with no more than a glance. He glued his eyes to his desk and started dutifully filling out the paperwork he’d just printed.

Five minutes later, Whitfield strode into the middle of the squad room, glowering. Jared checked the clock. It was already 4:30 in the afternoon. The call from Heyerdahl couldn’t have come at a worse time. Speight would probably be ordered to take Jared home before rejoining the others. According to the regulations (and child labor laws) Jared couldn’t work overtime like an adult. They’d been stretching the limits of that since the first day, because Whitfield’s team regularly worked past 5:00 on hot cases, but this case was just getting started, and there was no way they wouldn’t be working late into the night. It would more than just stretch the limits a little. But if Speight had to take him home, he would be out of the loop from the get-go, on a case where Whitfield would be just itching for an excuse to snap at people.

He also felt disappointment at the thought that he’d be sent home like a child, when the rest of the team would be working to save a seven year old girl. It was silly, sending him home when he was perfectly capable of working, contributing _something_.

“Listen up people, we just got a call from metro,” Whitfield cut off his thoughts. “The daughter of a postal worker went missing this morning. They tried to hold off on giving it to us, but post office is government and that makes this ours. Now they’ve gone and blown the first six hours without appreciable results, but that doesn’t mean I don’t expect us to have that little girl back to her family before the night is over. Now cancel your dinner plans and gear up. We’ve got a crime scene, a distraught family, a neighborhood to recanvas... and everything we do, we should’ve been doing _six hours ago_.”

For a moment there was calm, and then Whitfield roared “Move it people!” and everyone whirled into motion, grabbing guns and badges, shutting down computers, swilling coffee. Jared grabbed a notebook and supply of pens, then pulled on his coat, hat, and gloves. One thing he’d learned about outdoor crime scenes was how cold it could get, standing around waiting for clues to be interpreted and leaps of logic to be made.

Speight shot Jared a glance as he pulled on his own coat, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he didn’t realize the time, or maybe, like Jared, he was hoping nobody else would.

Jared made it all the way down to the garage before getting found out. They were splitting up between two vehicles when Whitfield cast his eyes over the assembled team and focused on Jared.

“Shit,” he growled. “What the hell is he doing out here? Speight?” Whitfield cast around and glared fiercely at Speight. “You gonna take the fucking kid home, or what?”

For some reason, Jared hadn’t realized that of course Whitfield would be furious to see him, and of course Whitfield would blame Speight for it, and of course this was an incredibly stupid plan. Speight was so hard to live with when he was pissed. But it wasn’t even Speight being mad at him that made Jared’s heart sink to his boots, though it should’ve been. It was that glare from Whitfield and the way he’d said it. _That fucking kid_... It rang in his ears.

“I didn’t want to waste time, sir,” Speight offered weakly.

“So, what? Now you’re wasting even more time with this?”

“Please, sir,” Jared croaked, and he didn’t know where he got the courage, or maybe the blatant stupidity. “I want to help, sir. If I could. I just wanted to help find the little girl.”

Whitfield glared at him and Jared shrank back, ready to duck his head and grovel. And then a miracle happened. Whitfield pinned Jared with an even fiercer glare and barked, “ _No_ whining and getting tired of it after an hour! We could be there all night, you understand? And I’m not sparing anyone who could be working just to drive your ass home!”

Jared nodded, mouth open.

“You will do exactly as you're told, including keeping out of the way when people need you out of the way.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I think you’re getting in the way at any point I _will_ stick you with the local PD to be babysat.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Jared mumbled quickly, and Whitfield grunted again and turned and got into the nearest car.

“Cassidy, Ackles, you’re with me. Speight and Hodge, meet us there. And you better be five _seconds_ behind us.”

“Yes, sir,” Speight said with feeling. He sent a glare at Jared and gave him a not so gentle shove towards the back seat once Whitfield was turned away, but Jared didn’t care, still stunned.

He spent the car ride fighting off the doubt that started creeping in almost immediately. If he screwed up even the smallest little bit, he had no doubt Whitfield would be all over it, and he might never forgive Jared or look at him the same way again.

Anyway, he wasn’t actually there to make friends and impress the boss. He was worrying about all the wrong things. He was supposed to be keeping his head down and _not_ drawing attention to himself, not risking his place at the office, and by extension, his placement with Speight, before he'd definitely gotten the information Pellegrino needed.

*****

Lindsey Dinwiddie had disappeared from her own backyard, right from under her mother’s nose. The woman was sitting at the kitchen table reading, and when she looked up, her daughter was gone. 10:00am, broad daylight on a quiet street, and someone came and snatched Lindsey Dinwiddie without leaving a trace.

It was cold when they got there, and getting dark. Whitfield chose to talk to the mother first, then review the crime scene, while the other agents paired off to canvas houses. Jared was stuck with Whitfield, trailing silently behind him with his pen and pad ready. He wished he were anywhere else, and couldn’t shake the feeling Whitfield wanted to be the one personally keeping on eye on him, because he wanted to be right there to jump on him if Jared screwed up.

The mother was a pretty brunette woman with thick eyebrows drawn together in worry. She was leaning against a police car, both hands wrapped around a styrofoam cup. Jared wondered why she didn’t get out of the cold with her house right there, and how long she’d been outside.

“Mrs. Dinwiddie,” Whitfield said coolly. “I’m Special Agent Charles Whitfield with GIS. I apologize we’re only just now being brought onto the case, but I assure you that starting from this minute the full resources of GIS will be trained on finding your daughter and bringing her home safe.”

“Thank you Agent... Whitfield? Sorry, just, a lot of people have introduced themselves to me today...” Her eyes were red but dry. Her mouth defaulted into a stiff, untrembling line when she wasn’t speaking. She looked, dazed, like she was in the middle of a bad dream.

“Of course. Yes, Agent Whitfield is correct. Now, I know you’ll have gone over it several times already, but it would really help me if you’d tell me about the events of this morning, in as much detail as you can stand. We can do it right here, or if you think it would help we can go inside where you were sitting?”

“Oh. No. I’d like to be out here,” she said vaguely and Whitfield nodded.

“Alright. Then, let’s start with this morning...”

Jared listened and quietly took notes as the woman went through her morning. Nothing stuck out as unusual to him, so he wrote down everything. Whitfield asked the occasional question to move her along, but didn’t really start joining in until she seemed to have reached the end and run out of steam. Then he began asking more questions. Was there anyone driving past while Lindsay played? Did any of her neighbors look out their windows or come out on their front lawns to say hi? Did Lindsay usually play outside at the same time, and had she ever noticed anyone driving or walking by in the past?

But there was nothing as far as Jared could tell. Whitfield’s face was hard to read at the best of times, but he was pretty sure the man hadn’t found anything to get his brain ticking either. He led Mrs. Dinwiddie through the story again, this time asking for much more detail towards the end. When Mrs. Dinwiddie got to the point where she finished her chapter and looked up to find her daughter gone from her snow fort, she broke down crying.

“I’m sorry,” she choked, “I’m sorry.”

Jared pulled out a tissue and held it out for Whitfield to give to her, but she saw it first and took it straight from him. “Thank you,” she choked, wiping her eyes and nose roughly.

“You’re welcome, ma’am.”

She balled the tissue up and stuck it in her pocket, then seemed to actually see him for the first time.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked hoarsely. Jared stiffened, suddenly afraid she wouldn’t like having a criminal out there at her daughter’s crime scene. “I mean, you’re a little young to be an agent, aren’t you?”

“Uh. I’m an apprentice, ma’am,” he said.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen, ma’am.”

“You look younger,” she said softly. The way her eyes were still shining with tears as she regarded him made him want to squirm, but he met her gaze and and tried to hold himself still. “Lindsey’s just turned seven, but she’s so tall for her age...” the woman trailed off and her lips trembled.

“Ma’am, I’m going to look over the crime scene now.” Whitfield interrupted, his attention wandering towards the CSIs to their right. “You don’t have to stay out here any longer, if you want to wait with your husband by the phone...”

She shook her head. “I’ll go crazy. I feel terrible, but I can’t sit there staring at that phone another minute. When they asked if I’d come out here to meet you I practically tore the door off its hinges. Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can help with out here? I could talk to the neighbors, they know me, they might tell me something...”

“Thank you Mrs. Dinwiddie, but I think we’ve got that pretty well covered, unless there’s someone in particular around here that’s got a problem with law enforcement?”

“No,” she laughed painfully. “It’s really a very nice neighborhood, everyone around here is just... good people. I can’t believe something like this could happen right here. It won’t be anybody from the neighborhood, I’m certain of that.”

“Sometimes people are very good at hiding who they truly are.” Whitfield didn’t wait for a response. “I’m going to leave Jared right here with you, and if you need anything he’ll come get me. Let him know if you decide to head back to the house too, so I know where you are. And honestly Mrs. Dinwiddie, I know it’s difficult and probably seems useless, but the best thing you can do for us right now is just go through this morning in your own head, detail by detail, try and think if there’s anything at all, no matter how insignificant, that struck you. Also, a list of anybody who Lindsey knows well enough to have gone along with would be good. I mean _anybody_ , no matter how unlikely it seems that they’d take your daughter: aunts, uncles, friends, teachers, neighbors. No one will see it but us. Jared can take that down for you. Those things are how you can help your daughter right now, and they might feel like busywork, but believe me Mrs. Dinwiddie, smaller things have broken a case than most people could possibly imagine.”

“Yes. Yes all right. I understand Agent Whitfield. I’ll do my best.”

“Jared, stay with her, make sure if she needs anything, she gets it,” Whitfield barked, the soft eyes he’d been giving Mrs. Dinwiddie suddenly gone.

Jared nodded quickly and almost added a salute to his “Yes, sir.”

Whitfield didn’t even smile, just nodded and stalked off towards the crime scene.

“Is he always that brusque?” Mrs. Dinwiddie asked, eyes on Whitfield’s retreating back. Jared was startled by the sharpness in her voice.

“He just wants to get your daughter back, ma’am,” Jared ventured. “He hates to waste time, but especially on a case with children, ma’am.”

“Good. That’s good,” she murmured, still frowning. “Does he have children of his own?”

“He’s very particular about keeping his personal life separate, ma’am.” Jared said quickly. He thought it would probably comfort her to know Whitfield had two young daughters, but it wasn’t his place to say. One thing he certainly knew was that Whitfield did not appreciate his family life being dragged into his job. “You should ask him if it’s important to you to know, ma’am...”

She was still frowning. Clearly, for some reason she didn’t trust Whitfield, and Jared cast around for something to say to make her feel better. “Ma’am," he offered tentatively. "I have a little sister. She’s, uh, she’s a few years older than your daughter. If she went missing, I’d want Special Agent Whitfield and the his team looking for her, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” she looked down at him and smiled shakily. “Thank you, Jared. I suppose that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

He smiled tentatively back, and she said suddenly, “Why don’t we go inside to make this list after all? We could make some hot cocoa or something. I’m sure you must be freezing!”

“I’m alright, ma’am,” Jared answered quickly, but he was glad to follow her into the brightness and warmth of the kitchen.

She made excellent hot cocoa, and after two months of living with Speight, the taste of real sugar was to die for.

*****

Around 9:00 PM, Whitfield decided to send Hodge, Speight, and Jared back to the office to start background checks on the family and a few of the neighbors who raised some alarm bell or other.

Before they left the crime scene, Whitfield took him aside to ask how Mrs. Dinwiddie seemed to be taking it, and if she’d told Jared anything new. Jared answered his questions as best he could, and it didn’t occur to him until Whitfield nodded thoughtfully and left him that maybe Mrs. Dinwiddie was also a suspect. It didn’t make sense to Jared that Whitfield would trust _him_ to find out information about that though. He decided the man was probably half honestly wondering how she was doing, and half testing Jared’s observational skills. He spent the car ride back to the office going over and over what he’d said, hoping he’d sounded intelligent, at least.

Around 11:00, Jared found himself yawning for what felt like the hundredth time, and Speight caught him at it and ordered him to go take a nap on the break room sofa.

Hodge groaned and said, “Lucky little bastard,” as Jared left, without any real venom. He ended up delaying by five minutes to fix Hodge and Speight each a cup of coffee the way they liked it and bring it to them before finally flopping down on the couch and passing out.

Speight shook him awake around 1AM.

“Any leads, sir?” Jared mumbled, propping himself on one elbow and rubbing at his eye. Speight looked about as exhausted as Jared felt. But as Jared struggled to wake himself up, Speight’s expression brightened. He glanced quickly over his shoulder, then brushed a gentle hand through Jared’s hair.

“What you do to me...” Speight murmured, pulling back. “No. No leads.” He sighed and hauled Jared to his feet. “We’ll get a few hours sleep at home and start again early in the morning.”

They walked through the office, where the rest of the team were all still working. The lights were too bright, and nobody was making any noise but soft shuffling. It was surreal somehow, and Jared knew it was only because he was still half asleep, but for one minute Jared wondered about how it would be if his life were normal. How would it be if he were five years older, and not a youthful offender. If Speight had no problem kissing him in front of the rest of the team, and Jared could just smile and shrug like ‘He’s in love, what can you do?’ And Jared wouldn’t be working to bring Speight down, and his biggest worry would be how to break up with him without hurting him too badly. And these people would really see him as a friend.

“Night guys,” Cassidy called as Speight steered him toward the elevator.

“Goodnight, ma’am,” Jared mumbled. “Goodnight, sirs.”

“Night,” Speight called cheerily at the same time. “See you bright and early.” Everybody groaned.

In the elevator, Speight put a hand on Jared’s shoulder, right about where Mrs. Dinwiddie had put hers earlier that night. Jared thought about her, going to bed without the least idea of where her daughter was or whether she was even still alive. For an instant he felt really lucky, having the whole team safe and sound, knowing he could go to bed without worrying. Then he thought about his real family, how he hadn’t heard from them since he got put away, and how maybe something had happened to them right after and nobody had informed him. How would he know, if something had?

Speight guided him into the car and buckled his seatbelt for him, then kept his hands to himself until they hit a red light about half a mile from home. Jared still hadn’t succeeded in getting his family off his mind by then, so it was almost a relief when Speight reached for him across the divide of their seats, dragged him forward and kissed him soundly.

“Jesus,” Speight grumbled, hauling him back by the shoulders to look him in the face. “This case is getting to me. We don’t catch a break and it’s going to be eating up our lives for _weeks_. Whitfield’s not going to let it go easily. I haven’t been with him on a child abduction, but Hodge was talking, he says we haven’t seen anything yet. And all night I’d check in on you, and you’d look so...” Speight sighed heavily and pulled a hand possesively through Jared’s hair. “I just wanted to take you home safely.” His breathing got heavier. “Never let you out of my sight.”

He dragged Jared forward and Jared went easily, opening his mouth under a fresh onslaught, and thinking that seeing the aftermath of a child going missing probably pushed all his buttons. As though the man wasn’t paranoid and protective enough on a normal night.

“Jesus Jesus, c’mere,” Speight growled and unclipped Jared’s seatbelt one handed, dragging him forward by the neck with the other. Jared stretched uncomfortably between the front seats, Speight supporting his upper body while his legs curled on the passenger seat.

The light turned green and then red and then green again, before Speight pushed him back over to his seat. He slid his fingers down to capture Jared’s hand and held it the rest of the way home, thumb sweeping restlessly over his skin.

Jared felt a shiver rock him as they pulled up to the house. There was a certain part of him that _didn’t_ hate the way the man looked at him. Not at all. Sometimes, it was the only thing that felt good about a day, knowing that he’d put that look there.

*****

“You need a haircut,” Mrs. Dinwiddie said, sweeping his bangs back from his face. Her skin was cool and dry. She hadn’t been eating enough and her face, especially around the cheeks, looked gaunt and worn. It had been a week since her daughter went missing, and Jared had spent almost every day with her, watching her get thinner.

His hair was too long, because Speight wouldn’t let him get it cut. Speight liked it shaggy and in his way, and didn’t care to hear that Jared preferred it shorter.

Jared didn’t say anything to Mrs. Dinwiddie about that, just looked away. He was sure she would believe him if he told her about Speight, but it wouldn’t be right, putting that burden on her. She had enough to deal with, and she didn't have the power to help him.

“Want to help me make lunch?” She smiled at him and moved away, towards the kitchen.

Jared’s mother had devoted herself to Katie like a personal crusade, but before Katie got sick she’d worked full time, and after, she’d still worked part time. When Katie was in remission or she had a few spare hours, she did a lot of work for cancer research foundations. Mrs. Dinwiddie was probably more focused when her daughter wasn't missing, but she drifted in a way Jared’s mother never had, even when Katie had first been admitted to the hospital. And she was soft in a way his mother never really had been either. She was his idea of motherly, but she was nothing like his mother. She made him miss his mother though, if he started comparing them too much.

Jared followed her automatically, abandoning the living room and its nest of phone tracing equipment, headphones and microphones and snarls of wires that had never been put into use. There hadn’t been a ransom call. There hadn’t been any word at all.

“What should I do, ma’am?” he asked.

“Chop those.” She pulled stalks of celery out of the fridge and set them on the cutting board. “Little slices about this big. We’re making Waldorf Salad. It’s one of Lindsey’s favorites.”

He ducked his head and picked up the knife. He liked being with Mrs. Dinwiddie, but he tried to avoid her eyes when Lindsey came up. It was hard to see that flash of pain, and harder to hide his own occasional, ridiculous, flash of jealousy. He just wondered if his mother missed him the same way. He knew his mother loved him, but it was hard to picture her missing him so helplessly, somehow.

“She could come home today,” Mrs. Dinwiddie said, conversational with just the barest trace of desperation beneath it. He was so used to that strain he hardly noticed anymore, but sometimes he did wonder what her voice had sounded like before. “Imagine if we had Waldorf Salad waiting for her. What a homecoming.”

Mrs. Dinwiddie always waited until she had Jared alone to talk like that. Jared hadn’t told any of the team about it, not even Whitfield, who checked in with him daily for a report on how Mrs. Dinwiddie was holding up. He knew it was foolish, but he felt like he’d be betraying her if he shared his concerns. He wished Mr. Dinwiddie hadn’t decided to go to work like normal every day and abandon her to the house full of investigators. He wished she would talk like this around Whitfield, or Speight, or someone who knew what to say. But she still hadn't really warmed up to Whitfield, and the others rotated in and out frequently.

When he talked with her, Jared always knew he was only making it worse, but staying silent didn’t seem right either.

“What’s her favorite food?” Jared asked, when nothing else occured to him.

“Oh, she has so many favorites,” Mrs. Dinwiddie smiled. She was at another cutting board, chopping walnuts, and her steady rhythmic movements were almost hypnotic. “Hamburgers, lasagna, avocados with thousand island. I’ll make lasagna tomorrow, just have to run to the store for some ingredients in the morning. Do you think Agent Whitfield could spare you? Lindsey always wants to come to the grocery store with me.” She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled, still chopping. It made him nervous and he quickly looked down at his own hands, finished cutting the last inch of celery.

“I’m afraid I probably can’t go with you, ma’am,” he said with his eyes on his knife. “I... I need to be accompanied by, you know, an official guardian.” Her chopping stopped. He looked up to find her watching him with round eyes.

“I just don’t...” she shook her head violently, and for a second he was afraid he’d angered her. “What could you _possibly_ have done?” She demanded. “Is it- Do they at least let you go home at night? Or is there some sort of facility?”

“I go home with Agent Speight, ma’am. He’s my court appointed guardian.”

“Oh. I didn’t... Agent Speight... with the brown hair?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So how often do you get to see your family?”

“I don’t, ma’am.”

“You don’t?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Not at _all_?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How long until you do?” she asked intently.

“I was sentenced to ten years.”

“Ten _years_? But that’s insane. You’ll be twenty- _four_. You- You’re a _child_. What could you possibly have done? What were the charges against you, Jared? I mean, really?”

“I, uh- robbery, ma’am, and manslaughter.”

She gaped at him for a minute, then turned helplessly back to her cutting board. With brisk jerky movements she swept her walnuts into a bowl and slammed it back on the counter.

“Did you do it?” She demanded, turning to look at him fiercely. “Did you steal from someone, and what, cause their death?”

“No,” he said fiercely, more fiercely than he’d ever talked to her. “It wasn’t like that, ma'am. Not at all. I was stupid, but it was an _accident_. We weren’t- we weren’t stealing. Liam and I, my friend Liam, we weren’t stealing, we were just looking at this antique-” at the last minute Jared decided not to say ‘dagger.’ “His grandfather had this antique, and we took it so we could look at it better, and then his grandfather surprised us and we fell down the staircase. And I was okay, but Liam wasn’t. We weren’t stealing and it was just a stupid accident. He died, but I didn’t mean for it to happen. I never thought anyone would get hurt.”

She studied him wordlessly, and after a second he could see tears glimmering in her eyes. “But you aren’t a criminal. How could they-? How could they do that to your mother? How could they look her in the eye and take you away from her for the rest of your childhood? For _that_? For a _mistake_?”

He could see that she was upset, but he was startled when she began to cry for real. He hadn’t seen her cry since the first day. She stumbled over to him and pulled him into her arms. Her sobs were wordless and ugly.

There was a noise in the doorway, and he looked up to see Ackles watching the scene with a concerned twist to his brow. A second later Speight popped up behind him and made to brush past him, but Ackles grabbed his arm and shook his head. Speight subsided with a frown.

 _Okay?_ Ackles mouthed from the doorway. Jared wasn’t sure, but Ackles’ stealth and his hand on Speight’s arm told him that the answer Ackles was expecting was ‘yes.’ He nodded. Mrs. Dinwiddie was already quieting herself, but she was still dripping like a faucet into Jared’s shoulder and her hands were fisted in his shirt in a deathgrip. Ackles pulled Speight away, and Jared was left alone to run his hands tentatively over her back and support the limp weight of her.

Eventually she lifted her head and wiped her nose sheepishly on the cuff of her sweater. She caught him looking and laughed wetly. “If Lindsey were here I’d be telling her to get a tissue for God’s sakes. God. That’s gross.” She smiled shakily at him and wiped at the tender skin under her eyes carefully.

*****

“She’s getting too attached to him,” Speight whined. Whitfield looked surprised and then rapidly thunderous.

“She’s lost her daughter. You don’t think it’s a good thing to give her what comfort she can find while we search?”

“It’s not healthy.” Whitfield’s eyebrows leaped up, and Speight clarified, “For Jared I mean.”

Jared held his breath and padded a couple steps back behind the doorway.

“Maybe it’s nice and healthy for her, don’t get me wrong,” Speight continued, “But it’s unfair to ask Jared to be some kind of- surrogate child to a grieving mother. It’s too much.”

“Has he said something to you?”

“Have you watched the way she treats him?” Speight snorted in answer. “It's wholly inappropriate, and I don’t want to tell a grieving mother to back off... but he’s fourteen years old, and he’s got plenty of his own issues to deal with. I mean seriously, sir, you can ask Ackles. She was weeping on his shoulder earlier. He doesn’t know what to do with that. She needs grief counseling or something, from a professional, not a child who’s still adjusting to his own situation.”

“I’m not convinced this is as serious as you say, Richard. But I will keep on eye on it,” Whitfield sighed. He sounded exhausted. “We don’t find Lindsey Dinwiddie and I guess it won’t make much of a difference either way how much of a shoulder Mrs. Dinwiddie had to cry on during the search. Speaking of missing persons, have you had any luck with the Padaleckis yet?”

“No, sir.” Speight’s voice snapped with frustration. “I tried calling them again last week, before this case blew up. Left a message, same as all the others. Not a peep out of them.”

Jared felt something in his chest constrict to the point of breaking. He hadn’t known Speight was trying to reach his parents.

“Christ,” Whitfield said, low and serious. “How can they just ignore your calls? Are they not even curious about what’s happening with their son?”

“Fucking assholes,” Speight said in agreement.

“It looks that way,” Whitfield agreed. “But until you actually reach them, let’s reserve our judgement.”

The conversation turned to progress being made on the case. Jared leaned against the wall, his chest burning. After long enough had passed for him to get his breathing under control, he headed back into the kitchen to find Mrs. Dinwiddie.

She was shelling a big bowl of peas, and gladly patted a chair beside her for him to plop his butt in. She smiled as he joined her, started talking about Lindsey right away, picking up the conversation they were perpetually in the middle of.

Jared caught sight of Whitfield in the doorway watching them some time later. No way to tell how long the man had been there, but there was a solemn look in his eye that Jared didn’t like, and when he smiled it was brief and did nothing to reassure him.

It made Jared a little angry, honestly. Mrs. Dinwiddie needed him, and nobody else seemed to help her the way he did. He didn’t know what he was doing right, but something about him calmed her down, and they were thinking about taking that away? It made no sense at all.

*****

Though Jared definitely saw Whitfield try paying more attention after his talk with Speight, Jared found he needn’t have worried about the man interfering. Things started breaking in the case, and soon the team were running off their feet, trying to track down a person who’d posted pictures online of a young girl who it was almost certain was Lindsey. Her face couldn’t be seen in a pictures, but she had a mole that seemed to identify her, and the timing was exactly right. The problem was tracing the anonymous poster, and it required all hands on deck.

Jared was busy too. Mrs. Dinwiddie seemed more absentminded all the time, and Jared had to work hard to try to keep her focused and moving. Once she forgot all about the muffins she was baking, and if Jared hadn’t been home with her she probably would have burned the house down. It made him worry about her, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to finally feel really useful. If he couldn’t help the team with the rest of the investigation, at least he had his role to play, and he took pride in that.

It was four days later that they found Lindsey Dinwiddie. She was in the back room of a house down the block from her own house. She’d been held there by a neighbor Mrs. Dinwiddie had trusted and never said a bad word against.

Jared watched from the sidelines as Mrs. Dinwiddie walked alongside the stretcher. They were bringing Lindsey to the hospital to get checked out, but the preliminary report from Cassidy and Hodge, who were the ones to break the door down and find her, was that she looked alert and generally unharmed. Even from where Jared stood, he could tell that Mrs. Dinwiddie was lit up with joy.

The stretcher was loaded smoothly into the ambulance and Mrs. Dinwiddie hopped into the back without so much as a glance around. She had her daughter back, and she only had eyes for her.

It occurred to him that he’d probably never see Mrs. Dinwiddie again. Why would he? They didn’t need to be around to guard the phones any more. The investigation needed to be wound up, but a lot of that would be office work, and would focus on the perpetrator, not the victim. He told himself that maybe Mrs. Dinwiddie would come by to thank them, or maybe they’d do some kind of follow up with her, or something. That couldn’t have been the last time he’d ever see her. It couldn’t have been.

Jared knew it was coming all along, but he realized suddenly that he hadn’t been prepared for how it would feel when the case ended. Speight might have been right about this assignment being unhealthy for him.

That night Speight lapped at the back of his neck, mouth sloppy-wet like a dog’s, and Jared barely felt the usual stirring of disgust. He thought he should be worried that he didn’t mind Speight’s messy, possessive kind of love as much as he used to. But maybe it was natural. Speight was like his family now, and a person couldn’t choose their family. A person had to learn to adjust to things they didn’t like about their family, and in return they were protected and taken care of. When he thought about it like that, it seemed more sensible _not_ to worry about how easily he accepted Speight’s affection now.

That didn’t mean he didn’t worry at all any more, but the focus had shifted. Now, he was trying his best to ignore the fact that there were people using the information Jared had given them to work against Speight, to work to put him in prison. He was trying to ignore the thought that had occurred to him, that maybe he should consider giving Speight some kind of warning about that, that maybe he owed it to the man.

*****

“Lindsey Dinwiddie’s out of the hospital,” Whitfield announced to the squad room. “She’s going to be just fine.”

Ackles started a clap that spread quickly through the squad room, then brought it up a notch by cheering and whistling. Speight clamped a hand on Jared’s neck and gave him a happy little shake. Hodge saw it and did the same to Ackles, and Jared and Speight both laughed.

Later, after they’d all drifted back to their desks and begun attempting to get work done again, Whitfield called Jared into his office.

“First, I want to say straight out that you are not in trouble,” Whitfield smiled.

Jared let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“In fact, I wanted to tell you that everyone was really impressed by your conduct on this case, Jared, including myself. You provided Traci Dinwiddie with support that none of the rest of us had time to give her, and I know that can’t have been easy. One of the hardest parts of this job is interacting with the victims. People who’ve been victimized and brutalized by the malice or even carelessness of their fellow man don’t trust easily, but it’s vital to our job to get them to trust us. You seem to have a genuine knack for that, and I really appreciated it on this case.”

Jared blinked in shock, and barely managed to stutter out, “Thank you, sir.”

“Second, this came for you. I didn’t open it myself, because it’s yours, and it’s private. But I would like you to read it here, if you don’t mind. I’ll be working on my report, so take your time.”

He held out a thin white envelope. Jared’s heart started pounding like a kettledrum, and he was almost afraid to take it for a few shameful seconds. When he finally did, his eyes immediately flew to the return address. He read it, and his heart immediately began to slow.

Agent Whitfield worked steadily at his computer, giving every indication that as far as he was concerned, he was alone in the office. Jared was grateful. He didn’t know why he’d thought it would be something from his parents, when they hadn’t given any indication of wanting to talk to him for three months already, but it embarrassed him that he’d leapt to such a stupid conclusion and gotten so excited about it.

The letter was actually from Traci Dinwiddie. It thanked him for being a friend to her, and for being part of the team that brought her daughter home. It talked about Lindsey, and how well she was doing, and it even included a picture of a cat she’d drawn. The last paragraph was the hardest to read, though it was short. It said that she wouldn’t stop praying for him to see his own family again soon, and that he should stay strong, and that he was a wonderful boy and it had been her good fortune to have met him. For some reason, that part made bitter tears fill his eyes.

It wasn’t like she owed him anything. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything from her. It just hurt to read, for no good reason, and he quickly refolded the letter and stuck it back in its envelope so he wouldn’t find himself reading it over.

Whitfield continued giving the impression that he was absorbed in his work, but he waited to begin talking again until Jared had finished pulling himself together.

“It’s a good thing, to keep your heart open, Jared,” he said quietly. His eyes were full of compassion. “But you have to learn how to guard it, too. Think of it like the world is a wilderness, and you’ve got this fire. You need that fire for light and warmth. You need it to live. And you can share it too, with other people who need a spark or an ember to light their own fire. But if you just let people grab branches willy nilly, pretty soon you’ll have nothing left for yourself. And if you let everyone else crowd around it, pretty soon you can’t get through to feed your own fire, and it goes out. And there are some people who will smother it. There are people who can’t stand to see a beautiful fire, and there are people who just don’t know how to take care of one. You need to guard it carefully, and that way, when you need to share it, you can, and when you need it for yourself, you will have it. It's a little corny, I know, but do you understand what I’m saying here, Jared?”

“I think so, sir,” he mumbled.

“Mrs. Dinwiddie needed the warmth you gave her. It was good of you to offer it to her, and there was no shame in her taking it. But too much of that, well, no person can give so much all the time, and not risk putting their own fire out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever heard the term ‘burn out,’ Jared?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s a term we use in law enforcement; people use it in other professions too. It means someone let their fire burn out. It means they’re done. They can’t help anyone else anymore. Often, it means they don’t even have enough left to help themselves. It happens to good investigators and bad. In fact, often, it happens to the best.”

Jared nodded to show he understood.

“You’ve gotten off to an excellent start here Jared, and I’d like to include you more actively in our investigations. But I do have some concerns. There’s a lot of time left on your sentence, and I feel your situation brings you a lot of uncertainty and stress that no other agent here has to deal with. I don’t want to find myself a year from now, looking back on this moment and wondering what I was thinking, forcing you to take on more than you could handle. If you find a case hitting you hard, or if there’s even a moment where your life, any part of it, begins to feel overwhelming, I want you to promise you’ll tell somebody. It could be Speight, or Ackles, or Cassidy, or Hodge. I’d be honored if it were me. Any one of us is available to you, and if you don’t want to talk to us about specifics, any one of us can get you an appointment with the GIS counsellor. She’s a wonderful woman. I’ve talked to her myself when things were piling up on me. Just, promise me you’ll talk to someone if you even _suspect_ you might need to.”

Jared nodded.

“If I see you struggling, and you don’t ask for help,” he continued in a sterner tone, “I _will_ reconsider."

Jared nodded quickly.

"I’m assuming you _are_ interested in more crime scene visits and observing interviews and things of that nature? You can stay with the strictly secretarial work if you prefer. I certainly don’t want to push you into anything.”

“No, sir. Please, I’d like to do more, if you think I’m ready.”

Whitfield smiled. “All right then. Now get out of here, I think everyone deserves an early day today.”

Exhaustion hit on the car ride home, and for once Speight seemed to be on the same wavelength. They ate frozen dinners in front of the TV, hardly saying a word to each other. When Speight curled around Jared’s back on the sofa later, there was no rubbing or fondling. He just held him, warming him, as the TV flickered brightly and the laugh track sounded again and again.

Jared fell asleep there, and woke up to Speight nudging him to change into pajamas and brush his teeth. Afterwards he tumbled into bed and was asleep almost instantly, drifting off to the gentle carding of soft white fingers through his hair.

He dreamed about sitting on a beach, sipping wine that for once tasted sweet, not sour. Speight wasn't there, but Jared somehow knew that he was in the lone house up the beach, waiting patiently for Jared to get tired of the ocean and go in.


	5. Chapter 5

Things settled into a comfortable groove after the Dinwiddie case. The GIS office seemed like a different place to Jared once he had reason to believe that the boss actually did like him and want him there.

He didn’t know if it was his change in attitude, or if it was simply that enough time had passed for the other investigators to get comfortable with him, but more and more he was also feeling like one of the team. Maybe team mascot would be the best comparison, because they still clearly worked to shield him from the rougher stuff, and mostly ignored him when a case got hot. But during downtime, someone or other was always coming by his desk to talk to him. When he wasn’t busy, he brought them coffee, and sometimes they’d take the opportunity to teach him something new about investigating. But more and more he found himself busier than he’d ever have imagined he’d be at the start of it all. He wondered if everyone else was as surprised as he was to find that he could actually be useful.

*****

On March 10, he had his second liaison meeting since the Dinwiddie case, and he was surprised to realize that he’d been at GIS for four months. In some ways he still felt like he’d just started at GIS, and in others, he felt like he’d been there for a year already.

He’d been given another zipdrive at the February meeting, and asked to copy everything on Speight’s work computer onto it. He’d found opportunities to do it in the month that followed, and he’d let them pass him by each time.

When the liaison asked for it in March, he outright lied and said he’d never been left alone in the office. He didn’t even feel guilty about it, just relieved that the liaison seemed to buy it.

He’d still never seen Pellegrino at a meeting, and he’d almost driven himself crazy, trying to remember every detail of the one time he’d met him, trying to figure out if he should have noticed something then that would tell him why the man had seemed so desperate to get him in place, and then never meet with him again.

He still didn’t know if the man at his meetings was an actual liaison, or an FBI agent masquerading as one. He supposed it didn’t really matter. There was nothing in his brusque attitude that made Jared want to confide in him, even if he still wanted out of his situation, which he could honestly admit to himself that he wasn’t sure he did anymore. Things weren’t perfect, but nowhere was perfect. His situation could’ve been a lot worse, and that was something he never forgot, even during the parts of living with Speight he didn’t really enjoy.

*****

Ackles picked him up from the March meeting alone. Jared was surprised, and secretly pleased. Out of everybody at the office, Ackles was the most fun to talk to, but Jared hardly ever got the chance to talk to him one on one.

“Everything go okay?” Ackles asked immediately.

“Yes, fine, sir.” Jared got up and started walking back to the car at Ackles’ side.

“Hope you weren’t waiting long. How long are these meetings usually? Speight said you’re always done when he gets there.”

“Oh. Uh, not long, sir. I mean, I usually have to wait a little while before they start. Once I’m in the meeting it’s pretty fast, sir.”

“Like half an hour?”

“I think maybe more like ten minutes, sir.”

Ackles’ eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”

Jared nodded uncertainly.

“What kind of questions does your liaison ask? I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but now I’m confused. I met a guy who worked as a YOAP liaison, at a conference last year, and he described his job as kind of a counsellor or something. It sounded a lot more intense than just ten minutes once a month.”

“I don’t really need counselling, sir,” Jared offered hesitantly. “I’m happy where I am. Maybe he can tell that he doesn’t need to waste his time.”

“Yeah, but...” Ackles started, then studied Jared for a minute before looking away. When he spoke next, he’d changed the subject completely. “I can take you back to the office if you have too much schoolwork or something, but I’m about to interview a witness. Whitfield said if you were interested you could tag along.”

“I, uh, I’m interested, sir.”

Ackles grinned. “You know, it never gets old, being called ‘sir.’ Makes me feel like a real grown-up.”  
Jared smiled back.

“But,” Ackles continued after a minute. “You really don’t _have_ to. Much as I like it, I’m not going to complain if you want to drop it and just call me ‘Ackles’ like everyone else does.”

“Agent Speight probably wouldn’t like it, sir,” Jared answered.

“You think so?” Ackles asked.

Jared shrugged.

“Are you sure it isn’t something he just wanted to start out with? I mean, he didn’t know what you were going to be like. He might have started out with stricter rules because he thought he’d need them.”

Jared shrugged again.

He wouldn’t have dared shrug in answer to any of the others, though it wasn’t like Hodge or Cassidy would’ve called him on it, he didn’t think. He liked them, and he thought they liked him too. It was just different with Ackles. He’d never had an older brother, but maybe Ackles was a little bit more like that.

“You’re not going to start going wild and tearing up the office if you’re allowed to call me ‘Ackles,’ are you?” Ackles asked jokingly. “I mean, I don’t want to instigate a rebellion.”

Jared smirked. “I might not be able to help myself, sir.”

Ackles grinned. “Anyway, you can call me what you want. You can even call me ‘Jensen,’ if you want to.”

Jared nodded, too dry-mouthed to talk. Jensen. He knew that Speight probably would hate it, but it would be so amazing. He could just imagine walking up to Ackles’ desk and saying ‘Good morning, Jensen,' and how Cassidy and Hodge would grin and wait for Ackles to maybe tell him off, but instead Ackles, Jensen, would just smile back and say 'Good morning, Jared.' And after that, maybe Cassidy and Hodge would let him drop the ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’ and just call them Cassidy and Hodge.

He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to stop using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ until Jensen offered him the alternative.

Jensen started up the car, but he didn’t put it into gear. He turned to Jared and said casually, “I know I’m not your official liaison, but you can come to me anyway, if you ever just want to talk to somebody. We’re friends. Friends listen to each other's problems.” Jared nodded, and though there was no chance at all that he would ever tell Jensen Ackles his problems, it was nice to hear it, and feel that Jensen meant it.

*****

The witness was being held at a police station. He’d been arrested for possession with intent to sell, and he was claiming to have information on an ongoing GIS investigation, hoping to get his charges dropped. Until they knew for sure that he was telling the truth, the metro PD were maintaining custody of him. Jared wasn’t sure he’d have agreed to come if he’d known that going in. Police officers made him nervous. Walking into a police station, even with Jensen Ackles by his side, felt like walking into den full of lions.

He could only keep half his mind on what Jensen was explaining to him, because it took a lot of focus to appear untroubled as he felt the eyes of every cop they passed take in his collar. It was a relief to finally follow Jensen out of the hallway and into a darkened observation room.

Of course, there were a sound tech and two more officers in the room already, so the relief was short lived.

The sound tech ignored them. The officers introduced themselves to Jensen and gave Jared a cool once over.

“I’m Agent Jensen Ackles. This is our team’s apprentice, Jared,” Ackles said with a smile. “He’s going to watch the interview today.”

Jared knew Jensen well enough to see that behind the flash of white teeth, he was geared up for a fight. But the officers just exchanged a glance and then nodded.

“Have at him then,” said the first one, nodding towards the one-way mirror.

“He’s all yours,” chimed in the second.

“Gee, thanks.” Jensen gave the officers a friendly grin, then turned to Jared. “You good?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You guys going to stay and watch?” Jensen asked the officers.

“Oh yeah, we wanna see how GIS does things,” said the first one. It was a tiny bit too flat to be a joke. It put Jared’s hackles up.

“Well, I’ll try to give you a good show then,” Jensen answered.

The second officer snorted. Jensen gave him a sharp look, but the officer didn’t say anything, and after a beat, Jensen turned and opened the door. Jared swallowed against the urge to call him back and ask if he could wait in the car, instead.

He was probably just being paranoid. They were officers of the law, after all, and it wasn’t like they’d said anything really hostile, or even paid much attention to him at all so far.

Jensen entered the room on the other side of the glass. Jared watched him introduce himself to the witness, turning on his smile and instantly putting the guy at ease. He started out with small talk, still smiling brightly.

“This is what they teach ‘em at GIS?” the first cop asked the second, after a minute. They were behind Jared, and he worked to keep his neck from tensing. “This happy crappy we’re all friends here bullshit? What’s he gonna do, blow him to get his answers?”

The second cop laughed meanly. “Sure. It’s a new interrogation technique. You know how your brain spills when your dick spills?”

Jared kept his eyes on Jensen, who was leading the witness through his story, still smiling and being charming. When he put on that look, he seemed like he should still be in high school, though Jared knew from Speight that he was 23.

“So you saw her leave the building with a guy?” he asked the witness, hint of a puzzled frown on his face.

“Oh yeah. Yeah. Big black guy. Looked like he could’ve snapped her in half, and she looked scared too.”

Jensen nodded. “And then what?”

“Then I followed them a little ways. I was worried for her, you know? I mean, we were _neighbors_. I didn’t know her that well? But I couldn’t just go about my day and forget about it. That’s not the kind of guy I am.”

Jensen nodded understandingly.

“Yeah right, asshole,” the first cop muttered. “You believe this bullshit?”

“You believe GIS guy in there, eating it up with a spoon?” the second cop said. Then he spoke to Jared for the first time. “Hey, you, he does know not all witnesses tell the truth, right?”

Jared turned but kept his eyes on the ground as he answered, “Yes, sir. He knows.”

“Well good then. Cause it doesn’t seem like he knows.”

Jared said nothing.

“What are you, the quiet type?” the second cop sniggered, and the first cop laughed too. “No really, are you shy or something? C’mon, we’re not gonna bite you. What was your name? Jared?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well don’t worry, Jared. We don’t mean anything by it. I’m sure your, what do you call it? Your handler? I’m sure he’s a very good agent, really.”

“He is, sir,” Jared said stiffly, looking up against his better judgement. They were studying him closely.

“You known him long?”

“Four months, sir.”

“And I bet he’s taught you a lot in those four months,” the first cop said, straightfaced, but Jared could see the gleam in his eye, and he could just guess what the man was implying. The way the second cop was smirking was all the confirmation he needed.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to watch the interview,” he said quietly.

“Oh, of course, of course,” the first cop said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your learning process.”

“Yeah, God knows I’m learning a lot watching this guy in action,” snickered the second cop.

Jared turned back to the window, shoulders practically up to his ears. To his relief, they didn’t address any more comments to him, though the comments about Jensen’s every move never stopped. To Jared it was obvious that Jensen was just trying to lull the witness into a false sense of security, but the officers didn’t seem to be watching the same interrogation he was. He wondered how they thought Jensen had gotten the job at GIS if he was such a moron, but decided on second thought that he really didn’t want to hear their theories.

Jensen led the guy through his entire night, then started chatting with him about the basketball game that had been on that night. Jared narrowed his eyes. Jensen sounded like an enthused sports fan, but there was no reason he’d be talking basketball with the guy unless he was leading up to something.

“So then, you’re saying you didn’t actually see her at eight,” he threw in casually. “Because you just said you saw the end of the game. In the bar.”

“Oh. Oh yeah, it must have been later than eight then,” the guy waffled. Behind him, the comments abruptly stopped. Jared could practically hear the cops’ ears prick up.

“So what time then?”

“Uh. It must have been like, nine.”

“Nine, huh? That’s weird, since your landlady, Mrs. Flores, didn’t hear your neighbor leave her apartment at nine. She heard her leave it at eight.”

The guy froze up briefly, but tried to recover with some story about Mrs. Flores always getting times confused.

Jensen let that pass, and then continued picking at detail after detail with the same placid tone, until he finally leaned forward and his voice got hard.

“So let me get this straight, just so it’s clear in my head: you’re coming up the sidewalk toward your building, which is on your left. You’re on the same side of the street as your building...”

The man nodded quickly.

“You see a big black man exit the building with your neighbor. They turn left, away from you. And you can see your neighbor’s face well enough to know that she’s terrified, despite the fact that at every point during this situation as you’ve described it, she would’ve been blocked from you completely by this huge guy? Do you have x-ray vision?”

“What? No-”

“Can you see through human bodies? Because there is no way you saw her face, not in the scenario you just described and confirmed for me.” Jensen’s voice had frozen cold as ice, and the guy sweated. “Tell me the truth: you were at the bar all night. You never saw your neighbor, or any huge black guy, nice use of racism there, by the way, you scumbag. You got arrested and thought that using your neighbor’s recent brutal murder would be a great way to earn yourself a get out of jail free card. The only question I have left is: Did you kill her yourself, or are you covering up for the person who did?”

The guy’s eyes practically bulged out of his head.

“No- No, man, I don’t know anything about it, okay? I lied okay? I lied about seeing her and the guy. But I didn’t do it and I don’t know who did, okay? It’s nothing to do with me, I swear it on my mother.”

“Well, either way, you just opened up a nice big investigation on yourself, bigger than any two-bit drug bust would’ve gotten you. So congratulations. Good plan.”

Jensen interrogated him for another fifteen minutes, but he was sticking to his new story, that he didn’t know anything and had been at the bar all night, and Jared believed this one a lot more.

The cops behind him had switched to focusing their disdain on the scumbag, and off of Jensen for the most part, so Jared relaxed a little, but he still felt much better when Jensen ended the interrogation and came back to the observation room.

“You see that?” he asked Jared, grinning. “I hope you took notes, because that was textbook. If he’d thought his story through for ten minutes before he told it I’d probably still be in there trying to find a hole. Never tell the lie without running it through in your own head first.”

“You sure you should be telling him that?” The first cop asked, snidely.

“I can’t believe they let one of these snots into a law enforcement office in the first place,” the second one added. “There’s something screwy there.”

“Or have they changed the program recently?”

“Yeah, like now the point isn’t to teach them how to be better citizens. It’s teaching them how to be better criminals.”

“Well, you know, if they don’t get caught again, they don’t clog up our system again. It’s efficient.”

“That’s enough,” Jensen said tightly. “Jared’s a credit to the office.”

“If you say so,” said the first one.

“I do,” Jensen answered immediately. “Now if you don’t have anything more about this guy than what you sent us, we’ll be on our way. I’ll be in touch if my boss decides he wants to transfer custody to GIS.”

“What exactly does he do around the office, anyway?” persisted the second guy.

“And how old is this fucking kid? You guys hiring middle schoolers to run your investigations now?” chimed in the first one.

They were both older than Jensen by a good fifteen years, and whether they’d decided they didn’t like him personally, or they had some kind of grudge against GIS, they didn’t seem shy about staring him down with unveiled disdain. Jared found himself sidling closer to Jensen with every second that ticked by.

“How old are you?” the first one asked him.

“Don’t answer that, Jared,” Jensen snapped out quickly. “That’s really none of your business, is it? But if you’d like more information on how the YOAP works, I’m sure I could find you a number for that. Or you could go ahead and call up my boss, if you have concerns on how the investigation’s being run. But, just so you know, Special Agent Whitfield is the one who suggested I bring Jared along today.” He loomed over the shorter officer, and the man fell back a step, leaving the way to the door half clear.

“Then your boss is as nutballs as you are,” snarled the other one. “I hope you check your wallet before you leave every day. And I really hope you don’t leave him unsupervised, ever. These little punks wouldn’t know the meaning of the word ‘honest’ if it bit them in the ass.”

Jensen switched his glare to the new target, and the second cop stepped aside. Jensen propelled Jared out in front of him towards the door, snapping, “If I wanted your opinion I’d ask for it. But, you know, thanks for the advice. Very helpful.”

If the guys said anything else, the door closing cut it off.

Jensen didn’t speak again until they were buckled into the car. “Metro PD are assholes,” he said stiffly. “You alright, Jared?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did they say anything to you while I was in there?”

“No, sir.”

Jensen studied him a minute, then nodded. “Remember what I said though. You can tell me anything.”

 _Yes, Jensen_ , Jared thought. It sounded good.

“Yes, sir,” he said aloud.

*****

“Agent Ackles said today that I- if I _wanted_ to I could call him Ackles. Like everybody else does,” Jared offered tentatively on the car ride home that night.

Speight huffed. “That’s a great idea. I can’t see how that would be a problem at all.”

Jared bit his lip. He knew he should just drop it.

“Why- why would it be such a bad idea, sir?” he asked anyway.

“You can’t see it?” Speight snorted. “After the hard time Ackles told us you guys had at Metro today, you’re asking me why it would be a bad idea?”

“But-” Jared started, then cut himself off. He should probably change the subject, and he should definitely stop arguing now.

“But what?” Speight prodded darkly.

“But it... I mean, I don’t _think_ it would’ve made a difference what I called him today, sir.”

“Oh you don’t, huh?” Speight laughed darkly.

“No, sir. I mean, I think those cops just didn’t like GIS, sir. They were prejudiced against us from the very start, and it was nothing Jensen or I did-”

Speight’s face darkened like a hurricane had just made landfall.

 _Jensen,_ Jared thought. _Why did I say Jensen? I’ve_ never _called him that before today._

He waited for Speight to say something, or at least glare at him. Speight stared forward at the road, knuckles white on the wheel, and the longer the silence went on, the worse the sick feeling in the pit of Jared’s stomach grew.

*****

They’d just gotten home when Speight finally broke the silence.

“So it’s Jensen now, huh?” He’d stopped at the table in the hallway where his mail collected, back to Jared. “It’s nice to see you’re such good friends.”

He flipped too casually through some old envelopes, that Jared knew for a fact were all junkmail. He opened his mouth to defend himself somehow, but he couldn’t think of what to say. Speight abruptly dropped the mail he was holding and moved further into the house to the living room. Jared trailed him like a ghost, watched him sink onto the couch and flip on the TV. Usually Speight would pat the seat beside him, or tell him he could go to his room, or tell him to get something for them from the kitchen.

Speight settled on a rerun of Gilligan’s Island, a show that he didn’t even like on a good day. He stared intently at the screen, but his mouth wasn’t even twitching at the jokes. He looked stony and absolutely unapproachable. Jared thought about going to hide in his room, but he was afraid that would only make things worse.

Maybe forgiveness would be easier to earn if Speight didn’t have an empty stomach.

“Sir, are you hungry?” he asked softly. Speight kept staring at the TV and didn’t so much as blink. _Please,_ thought Jared, frightened. But there was nothing, and Jared couldn’t repeat the question. He walked a few steps closer, approaching from the side so he wouldn’t block Speight’s view. He never thought he’d see the day when he was longing for a display of lust, a covetous glance. He’d give anything if Speight would just look at him, even if it was with hunger, even if it was with anger. He stopped beside Speight and instead of sitting on the sofa next to him as he usually would, he dropped to a kneel at his feet. Speight shifted, and Jared thought _finally,_ even as his heart picked up a little in anxiety.

Speight stood and flicked the TV off, cast the remote aside carelessly to clatter on the coffee table. Without a word he walked around Jared and exited the room. Jared knelt still, stunned. He didn’t move as he heard Speight rustling around in the kitchen and using the microwave. His stomach grumbled but he ignored it. He smelt a TV dinner heating up. He listened to Speight pull his meal out, sit down at the table, eat and throw the tray away, drop his fork in the dishwasher. He waited. Speight came back into the living room and stared at him from just inside the doorway without speaking. Jared stared back and tried to convey just how fucking sorry he was with his eyes alone.

“Go to your room, and go to bed,” said Speight, and turned and walked out of the room. Jared’s heart plummeted down to his guts, but after a minute he pulled it together and did as he was told. He brushed his teeth and changed into his pajamas, and then wound up sitting on the side of the bed, not able to get beneath the covers and acknowledge utter defeat just yet. If he left it til the morning, tomorrow would be miserable. They were always tired and in a rush in the morning. Nothing would get resolved.

Anyway, he was pretty sure that any sleep he did manage to get would be plagued with nightmares. How could he sleep well with the feeling of utter doom that was hanging over his head? He didn’t even know what he was so afraid of. Speight had never hit him or hurt him. Speight had said a million times that he loved him. Still his stomach rolled with terror.

He’d never gone to Speight uninvited. He imagined putting his hand on the knob and just pushing Speight’s door open, walking right in like it was his right. It seemed like it would only make things worse. But maybe Speight was sitting in his room, waiting for Jared to come make it right, and getting angrier and angrier.

He gnawed on his lip and weighed and measured and still couldn’t bring himself to move. He felt nothing like the boy who’d calmly lied to his liaison earlier. He felt nothing like the kid that Jensen Ackles had smiled at and called a friend. He wasn’t actually either of those boys. This boy, quivering on the side of his bed in his pajamas, too afraid to move without permission, was who he really was.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he almost missed the footsteps. They were hard to hear. The hall outside his door had a long carpet running down it, and Speight moved quietly anyway. It was an old house though, and there were some floorboards that had to be avoided if a person didn’t want to be heard. They creaked, one after another, and he wondered if he should turn off the light and climb under the covers, if sitting up with the lights on after Speight had ordered him to go to bed would count as another black mark against him. Speight was coming too fast though, and it seemed worse to be caught in the act of doing anything, no matter how innocuous, than to have chosen a position and stuck with it.

Speight pushed the door open. He watched Jared from the doorway for a few seconds, and Jared saw that his face was pale, with a bright flush high on his cheeks.

“You want to be friends with Ackles, is that it?” he asked angrily, as though they were in the middle of a conversation already. Not for the first time, Jared wondered what thoughts passed through Speight’s head. Jared had never been in love himself. He thought maybe he’d understand better if only he had.

“Yes, sir,” Jared answered truthfully. He didn’t see how he could lie about that, but thought maybe if Speight gave him a chance to explain that friendship with Jensen Ackles wasn’t a threat to them, it would be okay.

Speight’s breath caught, and he looked like Jared had just admitted to high treason.

“You do. You do want to be friends with him,” Speight said, stalking towards the bed. The flush on his cheeks grew fiercer with each second, and Jared couldn’t help leaning back when Speight came to a halt in front of him.

“ _Why?_ ” Speight asked incredulously. “ _That_ arrogant little prick. Why do you think you need him? Don’t I give you enough? Enough affection? Enough attention? You have to go panting after him like some...” He trailed off, eyes glittering, and Jared began to babble.

“Sir, _no,_ ” he said, low and urgent. “Please sir, I want to be friends with everyone on the team because I don’t want to lose this apprenticeship. I don’t want anyone complaining that I don’t fit in, that I should go to another placement. Please, sir, I’m sorry. Please listen, I thought it, would be easier, safer, if I were friends with him, and with everybody else too. If they-”

“You think I’d let them take you away?!” Speight cried. “You think you can’t trust me to keep you safe, here with me? Haven’t I told you I’ll never let you go? Didn’t you smile when I said that? Didn’t you nod and say ‘Yes, sir?’ Were you _lying_ then? Do you think I’m some incompetent, that I can’t protect you? And you can just lie to me when you want?” Jared cringed back. Speight had never been this angry with him before. “You want to make friends? I’m not enough for you? Because let me tell you, I have some friends who’d love to meet you, but I always thought I was enough. I know someone who’s offered me a lot of things for a night with you, but I’m never even tempted! I turn him down flat! I tell him no for you! To protect you!” Jared stared at him and felt his throat constrict like a large hand was pinching it, his lungs stutter and squeeze shut.

“Please sir,” he whispered.

“Is that what you want?!” Speight cut him off. His voice dropped into a low venomous hiss, that Jared hated even worse than the screaming. “Do you still want to make friends, Jared? Do you? Tell me you want to make friends.” Speight’s hands landed on him, squeezing in over his ears, holding his face immobile. If Speight weren’t clutching him he’d shake his head.

Instead, he could only moan .“No. _No_. Sir please. I’m sorry, sir, please. _Please_.”

Speight lunged down and kissed him painfully hard.

“So you don’t want to make friends anymore?” he asked when he pulled back.

Jared panted and whispered, “No, sir, please. No other friends, just you.”

“You _don’t_ think I need help keeping you safe?”

“No, sir. Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”

“No. You didn’t,” Speight snapped. “I love you. I love you so much it hurts me sometimes. And to hear you say- admit to my _face_ that you as good as _lied_ to me...”

“I’m sorry, sir. I won’t do that again, sir.”

“I won’t hear you slipping up and calling him, or anyone else, by disrespectful titles any more?”

“No, sir, I promise.” Speight nodded, and his hands eased up slightly but his eyes were still fierce.

“It’s my fault too. I’ve been too easy on you. You’re young and you need rules. Sometimes I forget that. I take responsibility for that, for relaxing the rules too much. That makes it all the more important that I punish you now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Speight let Jared go and pulled the remote control to the collar from his pocket. He’d stopped carrying it around everywhere months ago, so he must have picked it up before he came in to talk to Jared. Jared shuddered and looked at Speight pleadingly. Speight’s eyes still burned with clumsily-suppressed anger.

Jared clenched his hands into the bedspread and bit his tongue so he wouldn’t beg.

“Lie back, I don’t want to hurt you.” Speight’s eyes dared Jared to protest. Jared guessed it was a test. If he were truly repentant, he’d take his punishment quietly. He lay back like Speight had asked, and stared at the ceiling with his hands still fisted and his face impassive.

He saw the barest flicker of movement and braced himself harder. A few seconds ticked by. Then the pain started. Knowing that he’d been through it once before did nothing to help him prepare himself.

It ripped through him mercilessly, jittering current down through his skin and muscle and deep into his bones. The word ‘pain’ couldn’t do it justice. He didn’t know how he could’ve ever forgotten what pain that bad felt like. It was a buzzing, inescapable, hysterical agony like his entire body was a giant funny bone that someone kept smashing, again and again and again.

It went on forever, and it made him want to die. Long before it ended, he could hear his own strangled scream, feel his muscles cramp tighter and tighter in on themselves until he was sure they must be ripping. Nothing that hurt that bad could leave a person unharmed. He was curiously aware of his surroundings, despite being trapped apart from them. He was aware of every molecule of his body, because they were all screaming. He knew he was completely rigid on the bed. He knew in his head he was screaming ‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’ but all he heard from his own lips was an inarticulate cry of pain and suffering.

Finally it ended. Speight must have gone for the full thirty seconds. Jared’s muscles unclenched and one more low moan of pain escaped. He sucked in a deep breath and felt water drip from the corners of his eyes. His everything felt too loose, like his body had clenched so tightly it had ripped things it shouldn’t free; skin and muscle and bone, and now his pieces couldn’t reattach.

“Jared, look at me.” Speight leaned in over him before he’d even drawn a breath. The man’s eyes were red and wet, his mouth twisted in misery. “Oh God. That hurt. That hurt me too,” he wheezed, and stroked Jared’s hair back from his forehead with a shaking hand. Jared dazedly released the bedspread from his fisted hands, tried to breathe deep. “You’re alright. It’s done, now. It’s over.”

He allowed himself to be pulled up and into Speight’s arms. Speight tucked Jared’s face against his neck and wrapped him tightly in his arms. He started to rock him back and forth, mumbling the whole while about how horrible it was to have to do that. When Jared’s lungs finally started working again, he couldn’t stop himself from beginning to cry. He couldn’t stop crying for a long time.

When they’d both finally wound down, Speight led Jared down the hall into his room. He arranged him on the bed and wrapped himself around him.

“I love you,” Speight murmured in his ear. “Don’t ever, ever make me do that again, okay? I love you too much.”

Jared nodded his head, and Speight kissed him on the ear. His stomach clenched, but Speight just settled in behind him and didn’t ask him for anything more. It was good. Jared didn’t think he had anything more to give that night.

*****

In April, he met with his liaison again. This time, he passed over the thumbdrive full of the contents of Speight’s work computer, as well as a list of all the people he’d heard Speight talking to on the phone, and what he could remember hearing from his side of the conversation. Lastly, he passed over fifty-two pages of a file that Speight had kept in a locked drawer in his desk. He still couldn’t quite believe he’d taken it. He couldn’t believe he was actually handing it over.

The liaison raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say more than “Okay. Well. We’ll look this over. Thank you, Jared. See you next month.” The meeting lasted about ten minutes, as usual. Afterward, Jared went and dry heaved in the bathroom.

Speight chattered nonstop on the car ride back. Jared could barely stand to look at him. He honestly wasn’t sure what might have spilled out if Speight had ever stopped talking on the way, so he supposed it was a stroke of pure luck that Speight had just made a brilliant deduction on their current case and couldn’t stop explaining it to him long enough to take a deep breath.

Back at the office, Jensen was being irritable and Cassidy was baiting him while Hodge was, as usual, trying to keep the peace. He was only about 90% successful, and Jared was distracted enough by the intermittent bickering the rest of the day not to lose his lunch in the middle of the squad room.

In bed that night, Jared lay awake long after Speight had begun snoring. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed about his family. He was standing behind them, horrorstricken, as they watched a volcano erupt without moving. In the dream, he tried to tug on their arms, shout at them over and over that they had to come with him, but they didn’t seem to hear him, and he couldn’t budge them. The boiling cloud of ash crept closer and closer through the air, and they wouldn’t move. He woke up choking and crying out.

Speight mumbled “Jared?” in his ear.

Jared let out a sob.

“What’s wrong?” Speight sounded instantly alert. He pulled Jared over onto his back and peered anxiously at his face.

Jared knew he needed to tell Speight what he’d done. He opened his mouth, but instead of speaking he let out another sob.

“Oh hey, shh shh shh,” Speight soothed. He rubbed gently at Jared’s arms. “It was only a dream, baby. Okay? It was just a bad dream.”

The concern in his voice made Jared realize that he couldn’t tell him what he’d done. He never wanted Speight to know how he’d been betrayed.

*****

At the May meeting, Pellegrino was there. Jared stepped into the room and almost did a double-take.

“Jared,” Pellegrino smiled welcomingly. He took in Jared’s expression and added with a smirk “Surprised to see me?”

Jared just nodded.

“I’m sorry. I probably should have stayed away today. If Speight saw me talking to you, it wouldn’t be easy to explain. But I really, and I mean _really_ , wanted to know where that file came from.”

Jared sank cautiously into his chair. He had a lot of questions of his own.

“He keeps it in his desk, sir.”

“His desk at home?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, forgive me for asking the obvious, but isn’t he going to notice it missing at some point? Or have you thought of that?” Pellegrino’s eyes gleamed with curiosity. He was dying to know.

“How much longer, sir? How much longer do you think until...” Jared trailed off before his voice got shaky.

“We already had a lot on him, from the computers, and our own investigating. But with what you gave us? You eliminated months more of evidence gathering. The arrest will be coming a lot sooner, thanks to that file. Why? _Is_ he going to notice?”

“No, sir. I- That was just a copy. I waited until he was sleeping and scanned in the file. Then I sent it to my computer at work and printed it out there. There’s nothing missing for him to notice.”

Pellegrino nodded approvingly. “Weren’t you afraid he’d wake up while you were scanning? Fifty-two pages...”

“I- He has a bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, sir. I knew he’d wake up otherwise, so I, um, put one in his wine after dinner.”

Pellegrino laughed. “In-fucking-credible,” he murmured to himself. Then, to Jared, he said aloud “Jesus kid, do you know how risky that was? What if he noticed he’d been drugged? What if he caught you printing out the file at the office?”

“Sir, I- I waited for a night when he was really tired anyway, when we’d had a big case. I might not have needed the pills at all, but I wanted to be certain. And I waited until he was out of the office on a witness interview to print them all. I was careful, sir.”

“Careful,” Pellegrino repeated. “Just out of curiosity, what was the most dangerous part, would you say?”

“I- um. I think it was bringing them to the liaison meeting, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to bring them in my bookbag, sir, and say I wanted to work on schoolwork while I waited. But I hadn’t ever done that before, so I was afraid he’d get suspicious and ask to look in the bag.”

“But he didn’t, obviously.”

“No, sir.”

“And you weren’t as worried about people thinking it was strange that you were printing out fifty-two pages of financial information in the middle of the office?”

“No, sir. I-I’m allowed to use the printer, sir. I have to, for my job. And they were all focused on the case anyway. I mean, I was nervous, but I didn’t really need to be. No one said anything.”

“In-fucking-credible,” Pellegrino laughed again. “I don’t know whether to be impressed by your skills or appalled by their complacency at GIS.”

Jared bit his tongue.

“How did you know this was the file we needed?”

“Well, he kept it locked up, sir. It was the only drawer I needed a key for. And then, when I looked at it, while I was trying to decide if I needed to scan it all in for sure, it just... looked right. Looked important.”

“It looked important,” Pellegrino repeated.

“Well, there’ve been cases where we had to use people’s financial information, sir. It looked... like that.”

“Don’t tell me they let you help with the investigations!”

“A little, sir. I’m an apprentice. They’re teaching me how to do the job, sir.”

Pellegrino shook his head and laughed again.

“So, how’ve things been going with Speight?” he asked when he’d sobered.

“Fine, sir,” Jared said automatically.

“How’s he been treating you?” Pellegrino’s gaze was intent, and Jared suddenly found it hard to meet.

“Fine, sir.”

“But not fine enough to stop you from drugging him and turning him in,” Pellegrino observed.

Jared shrugged.

“Okay. How about this: would you say he trusts you now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you trust him back?”

“Sir, I... He’s a corrupt agent, you told me that. It would be stupid of me to trust him.”

“So you don’t feel even a little bit guilty for turning him in? He’s given you a home and it sounds like you’re fitting in well at the office too.”

Jared shrugged.

“For a while, you know, it seemed like you didn’t want to help anymore. The reports I was getting from here were that you were unenthusiastic, and it took you months to fill that second thumbdrive. I wasn’t sure whether you’d changed your mind, or whether you truly didn’t have the opportunity. Now I see that you’re more resourceful than I’d hoped you could possibly be, and you’ve clearly got more guts than I’d have guessed. So I wonder why it took you so long to make your move.”

“I like working there, sir. I wasn’t sure...”

“You weren’t sure you wanted to leave?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don't worry, Jared. I thought that might be the case. But I am curious to know what changed your mind.”

“I- I knew it was only a matter of time anyway. I realized it would be stupid of me to drag it out.”

“You just realized that one day. Out of the blue.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Honestly Jared, I’m sorry, but for some reason I’m finding that hard to believe. What’s really going on here? This evidence you gave us is almost too good to be true, and I don’t want to fall all over myself using it, only to discover there was something I should’ve looked at more closely about it. What changed your mind? _Something_ must have happened.”

“I- Sir, I... It was just...”

“Just what? Tell me what happened Jared... Did Richard Speight do something to make you change your mind?”

Jared nodded shortly.

“What did he do?”

Jared chanced a look up and found Pellegrino’s eyes gleaming with a look he recognized from the investigators at GIS. Except none of them ever directed it at him, because to them he wasn’t a case.

“It was just after the March liaison meeting, sir,” he began reluctantly. “I made a stupid mistake and Speight was angry and he, when we got home he... shocked me... with the collar.” Jared swallowed. “That’s when I realized-”

“He used the collar to punish you,” Pellegrino cut in.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know how illegal that is?” Pellegrino said. “That breaks child abuse laws and YOAP rules. Was that even the only time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has he ever hit you?”

“No, sir.” Jared fixed his eyes on his lap.

“You can tell me, Jared. This is only going to make it even easier to throw the book at him. What else did he do to you?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Jared, come on. You’re telling me everything was roses until the day he suddenly lost it because you made a mistake? I’m sorry, kid, that just doesn’t compute.”

Jared shrugged.

“Jared, look at me.”

Jared did.

“What else did he do to you?”

Jared just shook his head.

“Alright." Pellegrino looked disappointed. "We’re not done talking about this, but if you don’t want to talk about it today, we won’t talk about it today. We’ve got him nailed. We’ve got everything we need on him, and right now we’re trying to go farther. We want his associates. We want everybody we can get who took money from him, or gave money to him, or conspired with him, or just looked the other way.

"But it’s gonna take a couple more weeks until we arrest him, and a lot can happen in a couple of weeks. What I’m saying is, if you need to be pulled, right now, today, I can make that happen. It’s not ideal, and it might raise some flags. I don’t want to do it. But I will, if you tell me that’s what you need.”

Jared thought about being pulled right there and then. He’d never have to face Speight again, but he’d never be back at GIS either. “I’m fine, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you’re sure that you’re fine there, then here’s what’s going to happen. As soon as we’ve got everything we think we’re going to, we’ll come to arrest him. Probably at home. The local PD will take temporary custody of you, because until I’ve got the paperwork sorted from Speight’s arrest, I can’t get your paperwork rolling. You’ll wait it out at the police station, probably just a few hours. I’ll have you out of there as soon as I can. Now, listen up, this is important: while you’re there, I don’t want you saying word one to anybody. I don’t want you to open your mouth. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you promise you’ll keep your mouth shut until I come for you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright then. You’ve been doing well so far. Don’t fuck it up in the home stretch.”

“How much longer, sir?” Jared asked again.

This time, Pellegrino sighed and answered. “Don’t hold me to this, but I’d say two weeks, tops.”

Dazed, Jared left what he guessed would be his final liaison meeting.


	6. Chapter 6

Jared was in normal teenage boy clothes when Jensen and Charles reached him: blue jeans and a bulky grey sweatshirt. Jensen found it weird to see him in them. He was used to what Jared wore to the office. He’d never seen him in jeans. Under the cold lights of the interrogation room he looked pale and young. He was slumped way down in his chair, and his hands didn’t even seem to have the energy to close. They curled palm up in his lap liked dead insects. Jensen had expected him to be frightened, but he didn’t look frightened. He looked too exhausted for fear, and that was worse.  
Jensen was glad Charles was there, that the duty fell to him to break the silence.

“Jared,” Charles began. “Are you alright, son?” Jared looked at him in silence for a minute and nodded before returning his gaze to the wall.

“Jared,” Charles said, a little louder. “If you need to call your lawyer, or anybody else, now’s the time to speak up.”

“Thank you sir. I’m fine.” Jared said. It was obviously not true, and Charles frowned.

“We’d like to ask you some questions about what just happened...” Before Charles had finished talking, Jared was already shaking his head slightly.

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t want to talk. I’m sorry.”

“I certainly understand that, and we won’t, of course, force you into anything. But what if we start with some easier questions, just simple stuff, and then see how we feel from there? It might not be as bad as you think, to get things out in the open. Would you like a soda or something before we start?”

Jared nodded slowly. “Please, I’d like a Pepsi, sir.”

Charles nudged Jensen to go get it, though he was sure one of the men behind the one-way mirror had already sent someone for it. With the amount of time Jared had spent around investigations in the last six months, he probably knew that too.

Jared looked at him when he stood and headed for the door. He smiled and Jared looked down at his hands.

When he came back in, sodas for each of them clutched to his chest, there was absolute silence, no release of the tension in sight. Jensen was sure Charles had tried to start up a conversation, break the ice a little while Jensen was gone. The fact that there was no talking, or even eye contact, by the time Jensen returned, meant either that Jared was really digging his heels in, or that Charles was more shaken up by the arrest of one of his team than he was letting on.

“Thank you, sir.” Jared took the can from him without meeting his eyes. Jensen resettled himself, and every crack and creak of his chair sounded about as loud as a gunshot in the close little room. In succession they opened their sodas, Charles, Jensen, Jared, one two three. Charles and Jensen took a gulp of theirs, and Jared took a small sip of his.

As soon as the can was back on the table he started fiddling with it, turning it in circles so the tin scraped on the metal tabletop. It made Jensen cringe, and a line appeared between Charles’ eyebrows. Jared kept doing it until he glanced up at them through his lashes, and then he suddenly stopped. His hands disappeared into his lap and stayed there.

“Why don’t we get started?” Charles said calmly.

Jared stared at the table and didn’t say anything.

“Could you state your name and age, for the record?”

“Jared Tristan Padalecki, sir. I’m fourteen.”

“Thank you, Jared. Do you know why you’re here tonight?”

“Because my guardian was arrested, sir.”

“Your guardian...”

“GIS Agent Richard Speight. My guardian in the Youthful Offenders Apprenticeship Program.”

“How long since you entered this program?”

“Six months, sir.”

“And you’ve been living and going to work with Agent Speight for that whole time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I guess you spend a lot of time with Agent Speight each day.”

Jared shrugged.

“I’m sorry. You need to answer verbally, Jared.”

“Sorry, sir. Um. Yes, I spend almost all day every day with Agent Speight.”

“Do you know anything about his arrest, Jared? I mean, why he was arrested? What the charges might be against him?”

Jared bit his lip and shrugged.

“Verbal answer, Jared. Is that a ‘no, you do not know anything about Agent Speight’s arrest’ or a ‘you have a guess but you’re not willing to swear to anything’ shrug?”

“Sorry, sir. I...” The seconds ticked by. Jensen watched Jared bite his lip some more, watched his fingertips creep back over the edge of the table. Furtively he picked up his soda and took a few swallows, set it back down and started fiddling with it again.

“Why do you think Agent Speight was arrested, Jared?” Charles repeated grimly. “It’s fine if you just guess. You’re not going to get in trouble for a wrong guess.”

Jared shrugged and didn’t look at them. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t want to talk right now.”

Jared ducked his face down, but not before Jensen caught his expression of absolute misery. He wondered if Speight had brought Jared in on it somehow, or if Jared felt some kind of misguided loyalty to the man, or if he was afraid that he’d get in trouble for knowing something and not telling. Or maybe Speight had threatened him. There were a lot of reasons Jared might not be talking, and Jensen itched to know which one it was.

“How long have you been in here? You need a trip to the men’s room, Jared?” Charles asked suddenly. Jared nodded and actually smiled at him, small and relieved. Jensen wondered how long he’d had to go, and been afraid to ask. “Ackles, why don’t you take him?”

“Yes, sir,” Jensen answered, immediately understanding that Charles thought it was worth a shot to give Jensen some time alone with Jared.

  
He waited until they were washing their hands side by side to make a move.

“What’s going on here, Jared?” he asked quietly. “Just between you and me, as friends, right now.” Jared was frozen stiff next to him, but in the mirror his eyes were meeting Jensen’s eyes unblinkingly. “Explain to me what you’re so afraid of. Whatever it is, please, don’t assume I won’t understand, not until you’ve tried me.”

For one of the longest minutes of his life, the only sound was the rushing of the two sinks, and in his nose hung the delightful pink plastic flower smell of cheap handsoap. Jared didn’t look exhausted anymore, but his eyes were flooded with fear. It was painful to see, but it gave Jensen hope. Jared wouldn’t look that frightened if he weren’t torn between keeping quiet and telling. Jensen said, low, “Jared, please. I _promise_ I will help you... even if that means keeping a secret for you from Whitfield himself. I _promise_.”

Jared took a deep breath, and Jensen held his own. “I-” Jared said shakily. “I helped get Speight arrested, sir. I, uh, did things like... I copied his hardrives onto thumbdrives and handed them over.”

“You did?” Jensen asked, dumbstruck. “Handed them over to who?”

Jared spoke slowly, hesitantly. “I passed on the information at my liaison meetings. And they gave them to the FBI.”

“How’d you... So, the liaison office got the FBI involved? I mean, you told your liaison you thought Speight was breaking the law, and they called the FBI? _When?_ ”

“No it wasn’t- I didn’t get _them_ involved, sir. _An agent_ got _me_ involved. I mean, I didn’t just decide to spy on Speight after I got here and discovered, uh, that- well, that he was a dirty agent. Um, I already knew, and you know, that’s why I came here. To do this. That’s why I entered the program in the first place, sir.”

Jensen frowned. The idea that an FBI agent would put a kid in such a dangerous position on purpose was so appalling he almost couldn’t believe it. GIS had kind of a rivalry with the FBI, and he’d certainly met some agents he thought were jerks and was glad not to work with, but they were law enforcement, at the end of the day. Law enforcement didn’t use children to do their dirty work.

“So the FBI recruited you to bring down Speight?” he asked carefully.

“Yes, sir. This agent came to the detention center and asked me if I was interested, and I was, so...”

“This agent have a name?”

“Uh. Pellegrino. Mark Pellegrino?” Jared bit his lip. “I’m not sure I was supposed to tell you that- I mean, that’s something that maybe you could keep secret, please sir? I- he told me last time that the arrest would be soon and that I should keep my mouth shut until he came for me at the station. That’s why I couldn’t say anything in the room. I wanted to, sir.”

Jensen nodded absently.

“Just- I don’t want to mess it up _now_. He’s going to get my case overturned, or appealed to a more impartial judge or something.” Jared shook his head and smiled faintly, like it was unbelievable. “He’s going to get me free.” Jared brought a hand up to his collar and ran a finger slowly along the edge.

It was a depressing testament to Jared’s acting skills, that Jensen would’ve sworn that he and Whitfield and Cassidy and Hodge were more bothered by it than Jared ever was. It was stupid to think so, when they could go home at the end of the day and forget about it, and Jared went to bed every night with that thing still wrapped around his throat like a python.

The thought made his stomach twinge, and Jensen almost hoped Jared wasn’t telling the truth. The kind of agent who could send a kid into that situation seemed like the kind of agent who wouldn’t go out of his way to keep up his end of the bargain unless he had to.

  
After they’d loaded up at the snack machines, Jensen left Jared in the room while he drew Charles aside to explain the situation.

From their position halfway down the hall, they could keep an eye on the door of the room Jared was in, while still staying well out of earshot of anyone who might decide to eavesdrop on their conversation around a corner.

“ _Jared_ turned Speight in,” Charles repeated, when Jensen had finished going over the basics. “Jared’s been working for the _FBI_.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Jesus,” Charles mused. “S’never boring, is it?”

Jensen snorted in response.

Over Charles’ shoulder, he saw a tall man with intent blue eyes stride around the corner, on a beeline for the interrogation room. He was already at the door by the time Jensen and Charles reached him.

“Hey,” Charles said. “Who the hell are you?”

“Special Agent Pellegrino, FBI.” Jensen and Charles exchanged a glance. The likelihood that Jared had told the truth had just jumped up into the stratosphere. "And you’re Special Agent Whitfield and Agent Ackles.” The guy gave them each a cool look. “Thank you for your help. But I’ll be taking it from here.”

“And how is it you know who we are, again?” Charles asked. The ‘asshole’ was implied.

“Well,” Pellegrino said. “I’ve been working my ass off to build a case against _your_ dirty agent, and on the way I might have picked up a few things. Now, if you’ll excuse me, that prisoner in there has a lot of information of interest to me, and I’m taking custody of him.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you in there til we’ve had a little chat about this investigation you’ve been running,” Charles said.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Pellegrino bit back, “Because I have papers remanding him to my custody right here, and I’m in kind of a hurry.” The man waved the papers in their faces dismissively and startled when Jensen snatched them out of his hand.

He scoured them quickly for any inconsistencies, but they seemed legit, and would probably explain why it had taken Pellegrino a few hours to come for Jared. Jensen was sure if the guy had had his way, he would’ve whisked Jared off the second the bust went down. He wondered if he or Charles would’ve seen the kid again before the trial. The thought was surprisingly distressing.

“You want a look at these?” he asked Whitfield. “I’ll go in and say goodbye to Jared while you check through them.”

“You’ll what?” asked Pellegrino incredulously. “No, absolutely-”

“I’ll say goodbye to Jared while Special Agent Whitfield checks through them,” Jensen snapped, “because until we’ve ascertained the legitimacy of these papers he’s in _our_ custody, and that’s not a responsibility I take lightly.” He was satisfied to see Pellegrino scowl and subside at his bluff.

Truthfully, Jared was probably in custody of the police department. It was a hollow victory anyway, since those papers wouldn’t take long to check, and there was no way for Jensen and Whitfield to deny Pellegrino what he wanted in the end.

  
Jared’s head popped up when the door opened, and he smiled, then immediately got serious at Jensen’s expression.

Jensen hurried over and bent to speak directly in his ear, hoping like hell the mikes metro had weren’t as high-tech as the ones at GIS. Fortunately, it was a good bet they weren’t.

“Agent Pellegrino’s come for you. Whitfield’s stalling him, but we’ve only got a minute, so listen close. How good are you at remembering phone numbers?”

Jared shrugged tightly. “Tell it to me, sir. I’ll make sure I don’t forget.”

“Alright. This is my personal cell phone number.” Jensen handed him a card, trying to keep his action blocked from the mirror and the observation window cut in the door. “Memorize it as soon as you can, because if you get put back inside to await trial they’ll probably take it from you, and I want to know you can reach me at any time. If _anything_ and I mean _anything_ happens; if you get hurt, if you get scared, if you stub your toe, or if you even get a bad feeling you’re about to stub your toe, no matter how stupid it seems, you call me. You got it?” He pulled back to meet Jared’s eyes and found them shining.

“Thank you, sir, I- uh, I got it- I- thank you,” Jared darted his eyes back down to the card and Jensen could see his lips moving to immediately work on memorizing the number. Despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t, Jensen couldn’t resist putting a comforting hand on Jared’s shoulder as he leaned back in to whisper some more. Jared leaned into the touch.

“Protect yourself, okay? Don’t do anything stupid, and do not let Pellegrino talk you into doing anything stupid. Whitfield and I, and Cassidy and Hodge too, we’re all gonna be out here working for you, so whatever happens next, you just take care of yourself, keep making the smart decisions, like I know you-”

The door ripped open and Pellegrino strided in, eyes zeroing in on Jensen like Jared wasn’t even in the room.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun,” Pellegrino snapped. “Now can I proceed, or are you going to give me cause to lodge a complaint?”

“Jared,” Jensen gave his shoulder a firm squeeze, “it’s gonna be okay. Alright?” Jared looked up at him with wide eyes and nodded.

“It’s been a real pleasure, Agent Ackles,” Pellegrino said from behind him, voice dripping with sarcasm. “C’mon let’s go,” he snapped to Jared, jerking his head toward the door.

Jared stood and took a few steps towards the door, then stopped. He walked back to Jensen and suddenly threw his arms around Jensen’s waist. Jensen brought his hands up and cradled the kid’s narrow back. He had the barest second to register the hot, damp press of his face, the bony strength of his arms, then Jared pulled free and turned away, following Pellegrino out the door with a muffled, “Goodbye, sir.”

Jensen heard him tell Charles goodbye, out in the hall, then the sound of two sets of receding footsteps.  
He was taking a minute to pull himself together when he noticed his card, abandoned on the table next to the half-empty bag of Cheetos. Jensen hoped like hell that Jared had managed to memorize that number before he left.

*****

The elevator doors closed. Jared blinked at his own reflection, trying his best not to break down and beg to be returned to Jensen and Whitfield.

Pellegrino suddenly grinned wide and murmured, “Speight’s going down so hard his own mother won’t come to his sentencing. We’ve really got him.”

“His mother won’t, sir?” Jared asked feebly. He hadn’t much liked Speight’s mother the few times he’d met her, but she’d certainly seemed to dote on her son, at the same time as she rolled right over him.

“That was a figure of speech,” Pellegrino snorted. “I’m sure the old bitch will be right there crying in the first row. I meant his case is nailed down tight. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to see this day, how fucking long I’ve waited to see that arrogant bastard get what he deserved. And now he’s finally going down like he deserves, and I don’t just get to watch, I’m the one who did it.” Pellegrino snorted again and looked at Jared oddly. “You know that, after me, you’re the one who’s been working on this the longest?” He shook his head. “This guy should’ve been stopped years ago, well before he transferred out of the FBI to GIS. Hell, he never should’ve been hired by either agency. Five minutes after meeting him I could smell a rat, but try saying something and suddenly your friends are giving you the cold shoulder, and the boss is telling you to keep your nose in your own business and out of Richie Rich’s.”

The disdain for Speight reminded Jared strongly of Jensen, and he tried to imagine Jensen and Pellegrino getting together and having a few and bitching out Richard Speight with freewheeling abandon. In a way, he could see it perfectly; Jensen and Pellegrino in matching suits, slouched on side by side barstools running their mouths, volleying back and forth about the scummy things Speight had done. But thinking about them side by side was fundamentally wrong. Under the surface, Pellegrino was nothing like Jensen.

He was suddenly, ridiculously frightened. He worked to tamp it down. Judging by Pellegrino’s words, Jared had just given him everything he ever wanted on a silver platter. There was no reason he shouldn’t keep up his end of the bargain, so there wasn't anything to be scared of. Jared should feel like celebrating.

The elevator dinged open and they exited into an underground parking garage. He had the insane thought that he could just duck between a couple cars and be gone. Pellegrino was striding well ahead of him without looking back, and he hadn’t seen the collar remote since the cops had deactivated the perimeter shock to remove him from Speight’s. He could get a few blocks away, find a phone, and call Jensen, beg to be picked up. Jensen would say ‘What the hell are you thinking?’ but he’d come anyway. Jared could hide out at his apartment until the search died down, then Jensen would drive him out to his family. He’d see his parents and sisters again. Things would go back as they were and they’d all live happily ever after. Right.

“Let’s go,” Pellegrino called, holding open the door of a sleek black sedan ten feet away. Jared squared his shoulders and trotted over.

Pellegrino was gloating about Speight again as he started up the car, about how corrupt he was and how he’d been the only one to see it. Jared leaned his head against the cold glass of the window and repeated Jensen’s number to himself.

  
At the FBI, Pellegrino deposited him in a seat in an empty conference room with nothing but a bored ‘Wait here.’

After an hour and ten minutes, he put his head down on the table, cradled in his arms, and tried to clear his mind completely. There was nothing he really wanted to think about. After a little while, he fell asleep like that.

When he woke up, his cheek was wet with drool and his hands had fallen asleep. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his sweatshirt and twisted around to check the clock behind him. He’d been asleep for five hours. He wondered if anybody had come in to check on him in that time, or whether he’d been completely forgotten.

There was nothing to look at but chairs, the table, and windows with all the blinds closed. He thought about opening the blinds, just for something new to look at. Pellegrino didn’t seem like he’d care if Jared wanted to look out the window. But six months with Speight had taught him that taking the initiative for even the most insignificant of actions could lead to trouble. It didn’t seem worth it.

He shifted, trying to find a comfortable position with his butt so numb. His hands gradually tingled back to life. He eyed the grayish-mauve carpeting. If he just lay down on it he could probably get back to sleep. It was two o’clock in the morning. He doubted anyone would barge in on him and demand to know what he was doing sleeping on the floor. He leaned his head back on the headrest and thought about how nice it would feel to stretch out full-length on the floor and just shut his eyes... just breathe.... Thinking about it, he fell asleep again.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to the click of the lock. The door swung open, and Jared blinked fuzzily at the woman standing there, a young woman with big dark eyes and a full mouth, black hair pulled back tightly from her face. She was wearing a dark suit, and immediately turned back over her shoulder to yell “Yeah, Mark, he’s still here,” in an amused tone. Jared used the opportunity to swipe quickly at his mouth.

“Make yourself at home,” she smirked, walking the rest of the way in. Jared realized he was carelessly sprawled in the chair and scrambled to sit up straight. She left the door open behind her, and Jared peered out to see a half-full office streaming with early morning light. Pellegrino was at one of the desks closest to the door. He checked the clock. 8:30 in the morning.

It had only been about twelve hours since the arrest. He wondered if he’d ever see Richard Speight again. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to see him again or not. Speight would probably never want to see him again, if he’d already been told that Jared had betrayed him. He tried to pretend the thought didn’t hurt.

“Hi Jared, I’m Agent Cortese,” the woman began, plopping herself into the seat across from him and laying out a pen and legal pad in front of him. A strong wave of floral perfume washed over Jared, and he wondered how fresh he smelled. Whatever she had to say, he hoped it went quickly and he got a shower afterwards. “Big night last night, huh?”

He stared at her. Her blank black eyes gave little away, though her mouth was definitely curling at the corners. “Don’t you talk?” she prodded.

“Uh, yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. I... just woke up...” he shrugged sheepishly.

“Yeah. I saw that, Sleeping Beauty. Now, focus,” she snapped her fingers in front of his face a few times, smirking like it was hilarious. “I need you awake now, Jared. This is a big case, a careermaker. Pellegrino and I won’t be the only ones pissed if you mess this up, but we will be the most pissed, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. What is it you need me to do?” Jared was grateful for his long months of practice keeping his irritation on the inside.

“Alright. I’m gonna ask you some questions. You’re gonna answer them. That’s to get all the facts straight, get your thoughts in order. Then, using that pad I gave you, you’re gonna write out your witness statement. It’s gonna include everything we go over that I tell you to include, and if I tell you to leave something out, then that fucking thing will not be in the report, you get me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright so, you’ll start it out with the basic information. Name, age, yadda yadda. We’ll go over it together when the time comes.” Jared felt a presence behind him and looked back to see Pellgrino leaning in the doorway, watching and listening.

“Pretend I’m not here,” he said when he caught Jared’s gaze.

Jared stared at him.

“Hey, focus, we’re jumping right in,” the woman called, snapping her fingers at him again. He turned back to her. “First question: did Agent Richard Speight commit illegal acts in your presence at any time during your apprenticeship to him?”

"I... I'm not sure, ma'am. I couldn't always tell if he... He made phone calls, but I don't know what they meant really..."

She frowned. "Alright. We'll go over the phone calls later. That wasn't really what I meant. Agent Pellegrino informed me about an incident with your collar. How about you tell me what happened there?"

Jared told her about it as blandly as he could manage. She nodded and took notes. When he finished she leaned forward and said, "But that wasn't the only time he hurt you, was it?"

"I... Yes, it was, ma’am. That was the only time with the collar, ma'am. And he never hit me."

"Never?"

"No, ma'am."

"Do you realize how hard that is to believe?"

"I- I'm not lying, ma'am."

"Okay, so you say he never hit you. But he mistreated you in other ways, didn't he?"

"I don't know what you mean, ma'am."

She scowled, then smoothed out her face and asked blandly,"Did Speight ever have a girlfriend, that you saw?"

Jared blinked at the sudden change in her demeanor. He had a new sympathy for every suspect he'd ever seen interrogated. His heart was thumping and his head was pounding, and he’d only been talking to her for fifteen minutes.

"No, ma'am,” he mumbled.

"How about a boyfriend, then?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did he ever go on a date? Even one?"

"No, ma'am."

"You were there for six months, and you never saw him display any interest in anybody romantically."

"No, ma'am.”.

"Why do you think that is?"

He shook his head helplessly.

"Was it because he already had what he was interested in?"

Jared swallowed and worked to keep his face neutral.

"I don't know what you mean, ma'am," he said.

"Jared, I don't know what good you think you're doing, covering up for him. We're on your side. Why are you protecting this scumbag?"

Jared looked from her to Pellegrino, but there was no help there. Pellegrino was watching him with the same half-pitying, half-irritated expression as Agent Cortese.

"I don't know what you mean," he repeated, looking down at his hands.

“There have been accusations before,” she said.

Jared’s head snapped up and he gaped at her.

“-so whatever you tell us, we’ll believe you. All you gotta do is tell us-”

Jared shook his head, mind working furiously.

"Come back to it later," Pellegrino broke in. Jared turned and tried to catch his eye, but Pellegrino wouldn’t look at him.

"Fine,” Cortese said. “We’ll talk about the phone calls first then."

He turned back to her, still trying to understand what it meant that there had been ‘accusations’ before. He couldn’t think of any explanation that fit as well as the worst one, but it wasn’t the time to think about it. He needed to focus on answering her phone questions in as much detail as possible, so she wouldn’t decide to switch back to her other line of questioning.

An hour later, his throat was dry and he could feel a headache starting up at the base of his skull. Pellegrino’d given up his space in the doorway for a seat next to Cortese, and yet another agent had wandered in to join them 15 minutes in, a small man with a round friendly face and a coffee that Jared would’ve killed to get his hands on.

Jared was just working up the courage to ask about a possible bathroom break when a new agent poked his head in the door.

“Pellegrino. Phone call. You’re gonna wanna take this one,” he said.

Pellegrino left without a word.

“Ma’am, I need to use the restroom,” Jared said quickly.

She eyed him closely, like she thought he might be making it up. He tried to look as sincere as possible, though inside he was seething. He was tired, hungry, thirsty, and he'd been stuck in this chair for hours. She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Tigerman, you wanna take him?”

“Uh. Sure,” said the agent with the coffee. “Lemme just- I guess I’ll leave this here.” He put his coffee  
on the table and stood.

“You’ll leave that on your desk, which you’ll return to after escorting the prisoner to the bathroom. This isn’t your interrogation, asshole. I don’t know why Pellegrino even let your lazy ass in on the bust.”

“Uh, cause he couldn’t do it by himself?” the guy, Tigerman, muttered under his breath, but he wheeled back around and grabbed his coffee before leading Jared out of the room.

Jared took his time at the sink, drinking cold water from his cupped hands, washing his face and arms, scrubbing at his neck with rough brown sheets of paper towel. Tigerman didn’t accompany him in, and when he was finished all that, he took a minute to stare into the mirror and try to pull himself together. There wasn’t any reason to be nervous, was there? Maybe Pellegrino and Cortese weren’t very warm and fuzzy, but they were on his side. Even if they kind of didn’t act like it. It was probably just like when his team was rough during an interrogation, even when they thought the person was innocent. It was better to err on the side of caution. Or maybe they were testing him, to see if he would be good at testifying in court.

He didn’t know what Cortese had meant for sure, when she said there’d been accusations against Speight. But it was crazy to think Pellegrino would’ve sent him to Speight’s if he’d known exactly how Speight was, so Jared had to be misinterpreting something there. Once he’d eaten and rested and had a shower things would look better. He was almost free, wasn’t he?

  
Pellegrino hadn’t come back by the time Tigerman dropped him back into Cortese’s clutches. Tigerman didn’t hang around, and Cortese followed his retreating back with an intense glare before she turned to Jared and started right back in with the questions. The bickering on his own team at GIS was nothing like the infighting between the FBI agents, and it only made him more uneasy.

An hour later Pellegrino still hadn’t come back, and Jared had been answering the same questions for the third time through. Even Cortese had lost her little smirk and settled into weary indifference.

“I’ll be back,” she said suddenly, interrupting Jared mid-sentence. “Hang tight. Do NOT go anywhere.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He wondered what his team were doing. He thought about Jensen assuring him that he shouldn’t worry because they’d be working to help him. At the time he’d been comforted, but that had drained away. What did Jensen mean? Did he mean just in their time off, after work at night?

He wondered if the team were getting their asses handed to them for having a dirty agent on board for a year and not realizing it. He wondered if Whitfield’s boss was coming down hard on him, and if Whitfield was asking for time to work on Jared’s behalf, and his boss was scoffing and saying ‘A favor? After this thing with Speight? The only favor you’re getting is that I haven’t fired your ass.’

What if there were nothing they could do for him without risking their own jobs? Would they keep trying? Probably not. They all loved working at GIS. He wasn’t really their responsibility anyway. He fisted his hands in his lap and his head pounded, and his stomach roiled in hunger and anger and unease.

Sometime in the past six months, he’d forgotten that he was actually on his own. But he was alone; it was the reason he’d agreed to Pellegrino’s plan in the first place. He was always alone in the end, and just like always, his best efforts didn’t get him anywhere but back where he started.

  
He guessed it shouldn’t have been surprising that when Pellegrino and Cortese returned, everything went straight from bad to nightmare.

Pellegrino’s eyes were lit up with excitement, and he sat himself quickly at Jared’s side. Cortese resumed her seat across the table, but this time she was the silent observer.

“Jared,” Pellegrino began, “I know we said that once you’d gotten me what you could on Speight, we’d work on getting you your freedom, and don’t worry, that will happen. You are going to be free. I promise. But before we can get there, I’m afraid there’s one more thing you need to do.”

He sat, stunned, as Pellegrino explained what he wanted.

“Just for a few weeks, Jared.” Pellegrino finished. “This won’t be anything like the Speight operation.”

He looked at Jared in expectation.

“You’re not my boss, sir.” Jared said shakily. “You can’t make me to do this.”

Pellegrino’s face darkened. “You think I can’t make you do this?”

“No, sir. I- the apprenticeship program is voluntary and I- I won’t sign this time. I won’t.”

“Hmm.” Pellegrino said. “You don’t have to sign. You say I can’t make you sign, and I can’t, that’s true. But how about this then: you agree to sign, or you go back to the detention center, do not pass go, do not get so much as a day knocked off your sentence. I can’t make you sign, but maybe I can make you want to sign. You think that’ll make you want to?”

“Sir, please I- You promised me-”

“Shut. Your. Mouth. The only word I want to hear from you is ‘yes.’ If you’re not saying ‘yes’ then your mouth is closed... Are you going to do this?”

Jared set his jaw and stared at the table through blurring eyes.

“You’ll go back, Jared.” Pellegrino pulled up his chin so he couldn’t look away. “You remember what it was like there, don’t you? I think all your old friends will be really pleased to see you back again.”

Jared tasted blood in his mouth as he bit into his tongue.

“Or maybe you’re ready for real jail, Jared. You think you’re ready for real jail?” Pellegrino sounded serious. “If I say you were helping Speight with his illegal dealings, who’s to say I’m wrong? And then I’m sure I can find plenty of judges who’d be willing to move you up to the big house. I know some guys in the county prison who I’m sure would love to make your acquaintance. By the time they finish you off you’ll be begging to die. You think I wouldn’t do that? Look at me Jared,” Jared tried to jerk his head free, but Pellegrino’s grip was too strong.

“I got a chance- I got a chance here to bring down _Lehne_. Do you get that?” Jared smelled coffee on his breath, strong and bitter. For the first time Pellegrino had real passion in his voice. “Frederic fucking _Lehne_ just dropped himself right into my lap, and all I need from you is just a few more weeks, a few more _weeks_ of doing exactly what you’ve been doing. You’ve been doing this for months and you can’t give me a few more weeks? No. Fuck that. Fuck that. And if you screw this up for me then fuck you, you will be fucked harder then you’ve ever been fucked in your miserable pathetic little life. You understand?”

He let Jared’s aching jaw go, and almost instantly grabbed Jared’s hair with his other hand, hard enough to rip a few hairs free. Jared gasped and tears stung his eyes at the pain. “You _will_ say yes,” Pellegrino hissed. “You _will_ say yes. You don’t know how bad I can make it for you. You wanna try dying in a prison shower? Huh, Jared? Say ‘no’ and that’s it. That happens to you tomorrow. I can make that happen. And it won’t be an easy death. They’re animals in there, Jared. They take their time with snitches, too.” His manic eyes bored into Jared’s, his grip tightened, pulling more hair free. “This is your only choice Jared.” He leaned in close and his breath brushed across Jared’s ear. “Say. Yes,” he whispered.

Jared gave up. All he wanted was for the moment to be over, so he could bury it where all the other most shameful memories were buried. He had to have a whole graveyard full already.

“Okay,” he sobbed pitifully. “Yes, okay? I'll do it. I'll do it.”

With a grunt, Pellegrino released his hair and stalked from the room.

Cortese slid from her chair and followed him out, glancing furtively at Jared as she went. She had a dazed look in her eye. He had the sudden wild hope that maybe she’d go to her boss and tell them that Pellegrino had crossed the line, and maybe he wouldn’t have to go through with it after all.

Pellegrino came back alone with the custody papers, and Jared knew it was over and silently signed them, tears still trickling down his face. One splattered on the top paper and it seemed too fitting for words, made him want to ask if he should just sign the papers in his life’s blood and get it over with. Instead, he swallowed it down and wiped his eyes on his sleeves.


	7. Chapter 7

“Thank you, Agent Pellegrino, for expediting the process,” Frederic Lehne said. “I have complete confidence, you know, that your charges against my cousin will be dropped. In the meantime, it seems it’s up to me to make sure Jared’s life is disrupted as little as possible, since he’s gotten so comfortable with Cousin Richard as his guardian. It’ll be easy as pie to transfer him back once Cousin Richard’s been cleared, and in the meantime Jared and I have met before. I think we got along well enough, don’t you agree, Jared?”

“Yes, sir,” Jared answered. With Lehne right there in front of him, he did look vaguely familiar. He was probably at the Speight family Thanksgiving and Christmas, though he seemed to remember Jared a lot more clearly than Jared remembered him. He’d spent his time with Speight’s family trying to sink through the floor, and everybody had seemed to ignore him anyway. Maybe he should’ve paid more attention, but both times he’d mostly been moping about how much he’d rather be with his own family.

“I guess you’re feeling a little stressed about your situation being so up in the air, aren’t you Jared?” Lehne waited, but Jared couldn’t even get his throat to work well enough to play along. It didn’t seem to matter anyway, the man just rolled right on, oozing charm. “Well, I want to promise you right now that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you in the program and out of juvie, you hear me? No matter what happens I won’t let them take you without a fight. You know, I think it may take a few days to settle in, but once you do I expect you’ll find that life with me is really something you’ll enjoy.”

Jared studied his expression, but there was no way to tell yet whether that would prove true or not.

  
He ushered Jared into an honest to God limousine, and then took a seat across from him. There was a dark glass screen up between them and the driver, and once Lehne took his thumb off the intercom button, Jared figured no one could see them or hear them. He tensed, but Lehne just kept chattering on about what a nice thing it would be to have company in the house, and how he really believed Jared was going to settle right in. If Lehne was putting on an act, he was putting it on for Jared, too.

Jared found himself playing along: nodding whenever Lehne seemed to expect a response and even meeting the man’s eyes every once in a while to prove he was listening. He could feel his fear like a pigeon in his chest, flapping and pecking. The car was filled with the musky scent of Lehne’s cologne. It was hard to keep his mind on the present with dark hazy memories pressing in, threatening to make him panic. He remembered how friendly Speight had seemed at first. And Pellegrino too.

He’d trusted Pellegrino to help him, and instead he was riding home with another stranger.

“You’d like that too, right Jared?” Lehne was saying.

Jared nodded, though he’d missed the first part of it and didn’t really know what he was agreeing to. He doubted he needed to know, since if Lehne wanted him to like something then he would, and if all Lehne wanted him to do was nod agreeably then he would.

“I know you and Cousin Richard got really close,” Lehne said, and the way his eyes fell heavy on Jared’s face and didn’t leave again made Jared’s ears sharpen. “He was good to you, wasn’t he?”

Jared nodded.

“And you were good to him too, weren’t you? Because he was so good to you?”

Jared nodded, found he was holding his breath.

“I hope you’ll show me just how good you can be.” Lehne said. “I always wanted to get to know you better, you know, but Cousin Richie always was pretty jealous with his friends. Even as a child, he never wanted his friends to get along with each other. I thought you and me, we’d get along pretty well, that’s what made him so reluctant to introduce us, the little prick. I mean, don’t get me wrong Jared, I love him, he’s my cousin, but he can sure be a little prick sometimes, am I right?”

The man’s gaze beat down on him like the noon sun in the middle of August. Jared felt his spit dry up in his mouth.

“Well Jared? Am I right or not? What do you think? Is Cousin Richie a little prick or is he not?” Jared couldn’t answer, fairly sure that this was a game, a rigged one.

“Please, sir,” he said finally, and his tongue automatically swept out to moisten his dry lips before he could think better of it. Lehne’s eyes followed the motion. “I- I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh you don’t, huh? I mean he abandoned you, Jared. I mean, little Richie had to go off and diddle around with bad people and get himself arrested, and that left you on your own. If I hadn’t stepped in for you, you do know where you’d be right now? Rotting away in some cell, awaiting transfer back to jail. That’s where you’d be, and all because little Richie just had to stick his fingers in all those pies. That’s what I mean by him being a prick.”

Jared closed his eyes. If he weren’t so hungry and thirsty and flat out exhausted he could have maybe thought his way through. There had to be a way to play it to buy himself some time. If Ackles were in his position, or any other GIS agent, they’d have a strategy. Whitfield once talked a guy down off a seven story building. He’d be able to outthink Lehne without breaking a sweat. But truthfully, Jared’s imagination failed when he tried to picture any of the agents in his position. It seemed to be only him that this kind of thing happened to. He wondered how many people he’d killed in a past life, to earn this life.

“Well, maybe you don’t want to say it in front of me, him being my cousin and all. It would probably piss me off to hear you say it, actually. It’s okay, Jared, I won’t make you say it. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t thinking, so I guess I made you pretty uncomfortable just then. I hope you can forgive me.”

Jared opened his eyes and stared at his lap.

“Jared,” Lehne said. “I’d appreciate if you’d look up here while I’m apologizing to you. It’s very rude to ignore an apology.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Jared mumbled, and darted a glance up. Lehne was wearing a strange half smile.

“It’s alright. But how about you do something for me to put my mind at ease, let me know my apology’s accepted? It is accepted, isn’t it Jared?”

“Yes, sir.” Jared meant to sound firm, but his voice came out weak and shaky.

“Good boy. Now, how about you come over here and just give me a little peck on the cheek, so I know we’re friends again?”

“Yes sir,” Jared whispered.

Surely, anything that Lehne tried to throw at him he’d have experience with. There couldn’t be that much he hadn’t done with Speight, and none of it had been so bad, once he got used to it.

All the same, he couldn’t stop his guts from flip flopping and his hands from shaking as he slowly rose from his seat. The limo roof was too low for him to stand, but that was okay. It gave him an excuse to bend over and keep his body away from Lehne’s. Lehne’s eyes lit up as Jared moved towards him, and one leathery finger coyly tapped a spot on his own left cheek. Silently Jared leaned in, glad when he got in close enough that he didn’t have to meet Lehne’s eyes anymore. He gave Lehne’s skin the lightest kiss he could, and immediately started easing his way back.

Lehne smiled smugly. “One more,” he said, staring Jared down like he was winning some big victory. “Right here.” He tapped his other cheek. Jared leaned in and gave it to him. Quick and light, so he could barely feel the leathery skin. Started pulling slowly back away, and already knew how it was going to go before Lehne broke the quiet again. “One here,” he said, and put one delicate fingerpad on the corner of his mouth.

Stomach clenching, Jared leaned in and kissed him on the left corner, then, at his direction, on the right corner. As Jared pulled back from that one, not daring to back off too far now that he understood the game, he saw Lehne leaning back too, relaxing into the seat, then deliberately stepping his feet out so his legs spread lazily. “One more,” Lehne said, with a Chesire cat grin. Jared waited, still bent over in the middle of the car, and watched Lehne’s eyes dip meaningfully down to his own crotch and flick back up to Jared’s face.

Jared swallowed back bile, all that was in his stomach at that point, and gracefully went to his knees without a word. Following along with the established rules, Jared leaned down and placed a light kiss on the fabric in front of him, dark, expensive, smooth against his lips. He didn’t even press hard enough to feel Lehne through the cloth, and he knew he wouldn’t get away with it for long, but his only victory seemed to be dragging things out for as long as possible. Maybe the car would get where it’s going, or Lehne would change his mind. Or maybe they’d get into a terrible accident and Lehne would get decapitated by a car part.

He pulled back and settled on his heels, eyes focused vaguely on Lehne’s midsection.

He could see it coming, but he didn’t make any effort to avoid Lehne’s hand. It twined in his hair, gently but firmly, and then Lehne pulled his face back down to within millimeters of his groin. Jared breathed out heavily and heard Lehne groan. The pull on his scalp increased until his closed mouth was firmly pushing on Lehne through his slacks.

“C’mon,” Lehne growled, and Jared silently began mouthing Lehne through his pants. He listened wearily to the groans that followed, automatically cataloging the man’s reactions to different pressures in different places. It was information he’d probably have to use again; there wasn’t any point to being in denial about it.

Long minutes passed by. The fabric under his mouth grew damp, and he could feel how Lehne had swollen to full hardness in his pants. He kept his hands clenched tightly on his kneecaps, and tried very hard to convince himself that the worst part of it was how tedious it all was.

He wondered what they were doing at GIS just then. It had been about six in the evening by the time Lehne had shown up to claim him. If there wasn’t any new case to work on, the team might have gone home already.

Lehne fisted the hand in his hair tight enough to really hurt, and used the leverage to rub Jared’s cheek and jaw against his bulging groin several times.

Jared ignored it and pictured the team heading home for the night. Cassidy would be muttering goodnaturedly about her fiance getting lazy ever since she said yes. Hodge would be telling the room at large about a hot date he was going on, and Jensen would claim Hodge was just going home to play World of Warcraft in his underwear, and Hodge would declare that Jensen was going home to make model airplanes in a bra and panties. Whitfield would ignore them all, focused on heading home to his mysterious wife and daughters.

Lehne pulled Jared back, forced his head against his knee so he had a good view as Lehne used his free hand to undo his belt and fly. He burrowed into the slit in his boxers and pulled himself out. Jared opened his mouth and wrapped his lips around his teeth automatically and Lehne began to press inside.

Jared thought about Jensen slipping into his coat, bending down to log out of his computer before flipping it off. He hoped Jensen would spare at least one glance for his empty desk. He hoped they all would.

Lehne hit the back of his throat and Jared choked. That had always made Speight look guilty, but Lehne chuckled and drew back an inch to drive forward, do it again. The second time, Jared didn’t choke, and Lehne dragged Jared the rest of the way in with both hands. His nose ended up pressed into the wiry curls and sweaty flesh of Lehne’s lower belly. Jared relaxed his throat around the intrusion, glad for all the practice he’d gotten with Speight, or else he’d probably have been heaving. In a bizarre way, he felt proud almost that he could do it. Lehne groaned again.

The pride faded quickly when Lehne stopped moving. Lehne was blocking his airway completely, and he couldn’t breathe. He waited, but the seconds ticked by and still Lehne held him there. He wondered if he was supposed to be doing something, but it seemed like Lehne would say so if that was the case. After a while water began to trickle from the corners of his eyes and down his distended cheeks. His lungs spasmed and begged for air. Then his ears began to ring. His vision tunneled until all he could see was Lehne’s face, red and sweaty and pleased. Jared dug his fingernails into his knees with the effort of not moving. Black spots appeared before his eyes. He finally whimpered deep in his throat. The rushing of blood in his head was so loud he couldn’t tell if the sound escaped, but Lehne groaned and shifted. He didn’t move to let Jared breathe, though. The black spots expanded into black fields, the rushing in his head grew overwhelming.

Jared finally couldn’t keep himself from struggling any longer. He pulled back sharply with his head and pushed hard with his hands. For a second it seemed like he wouldn’t go anywhere, and then Lehne yanked him off and tossed him to the floor of the car.

He lay gasping on his side as his vision finally cleared, too limp with relief to move from where he’d landed. One ankle twinged slightly at the way his foot was bent back against the seat and he could feel the lump of Lehne’s toe under his hip. He only had a few moments of rest before Lehne’s foot drew back and drove forward into his stomach. Pain exploded through him, and all his fresh air whooshed out of him. Before he could recover, Lehne’s foot landed in his stomach again. Jared curled around it as tightly as he could. Lehne pried his foot free and started kicking more wildly, digging hard into Jared’s arms, shins, anywhere he could reach. He was saying “You don’t do anything without my permission, you stupid little slut. What did you think you were doing there, dumbshit? Huh? You don’t fucking pull away from me. Not ever.”

 _My entire life is a rigged game_ , Jared thought hysterically. His body shook with the force of Lehne’s kicks. There was nowhere to go to escape them in the back of the car, though the tight quarters meant that at least there wasn’t as much power behind them as there could’ve been. He’d seen enough violent cases to know that if Lehne got him a good one on the temple he might actually kill him, so he curled his arms around his head and waited.

After the kicking stopped, Lehne took a few minutes to catch his breath. Then he wound his fingers in Jared's hair and yanked him upright. With only a few gasps of pain, Jared allowed himself to be hauled onto his knees, and leaned in to take Lehne back in. Jared took the lead immediately: bobbing, licking, and sucking with a will. Lehne still choked him a few more times, but never for so long again. Jared tried to persuade him not to with all the skill he could muster. Eventually, the same tricks that had worked on Speight worked on his cousin, though by the end of it Jared’s jaw was aching and he felt like crying in frustration.

Jared swallowed what he could, and licked clean what was left. He sat back on his heels and watched Lehne tuck his limp dick into his pants lazily. For a few moments, Lehne seemed to forget he was there. Then he looked at Jared and Jared had to work not to flinch. But Lehne didn’t say anything, just snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor. Jared waited for something more, more abuse, more instructions, any kind of words. When Lehne just glared at him, he finally made a guess and lay down. Lehne nodded. He leaned his head back against the seat and began humming softly to himself.

Jared didn’t want to close his eyes, afraid that Lehne would take that as an invitation, the way people who see someone daydreaming can never seem to resist waving a hand in front of their face. He studied the shiny black of Lehne’s shoes, the tan leather of the limo’s interior, his own ragged and bitten fingernails. He wondered what Lehne would do to him once he got him home. The hideous realization bubbled deep within him that turning Speight in had been the worst choice of his life.

*****

From inside the bedroom closet, Jared listened to Lehne leave for work. The top half of the door was slatted, and sounds carried through easily. He didn’t relax until the house had been silent for a while. He studied the door and thought it might be possible to break his way out with enough force behind his bare foot.

He told himself it wasn’t a good strategy. He was sore, and scared, but Lehne seemed to have calmed down after they got out of the car the night before. Jared hoped that if he didn’t give Lehne any trouble, Lehne would realize he didn’t need to hurt him to get what he wanted. It made no sense that Lehne would keep hurting him and risk child abuse charges if he didn’t have to. So things would probably get better going forward, if Jared just did what he had to do. Pellegrino said it would only be a couple weeks this time, anyway. It wasn’t good strategy to drop out of the race a few feet from the finish line.

The truth though, was that all he could think of when he thought about breaking out, was what Lehne would do to him if he caught him in the process. Lehne was a person who knew how to make it hurt. Jared had only needed one night with him to learn that.

There was another way he could escape, too. He studied the shirts hanging neatly from the bar above him, and thought about how easy it would be to make a noose out of one of them. He measured the height of the bar with his eyes and tried to decide if he’d really be able to hang himself from it without his feet finding a way to support him. If he thought Pellegrino was lying to him again, it might be the strategic move to just... end it. He wasn’t even sure, any more, what he was working towards, if he thought about it too hard. If he got free, where exactly did he think he would go? What kind of future did he picture for himself? He tried to think, but it was all a blank. He couldn’t go back to Speight, so he couldn’t go back to GIS. Pellegrino had proven untrustworthy, and even if he didn’t end up back at the detention center, he couldn’t promise himself he’d end up back home either, not when he hadn’t heard a word from him parents in six months.

When his suicidal thoughts got too serious for him, he hoisted himself to his feet and started looking at the clothes. They were all expensive suits, arranged by color. At the far right of the closet was a travel bag. He unzipped it to find another suit inside, an old black one. It smelled of mothballs and cigar smoke, and when Jared examined it he found a label in the neck for a tailor named Franz Hessel. He zipped it back away. He thought that the man who wore the suit must have been Lehne’s father, and he wondered what the man was like, to raise a son like Frederic Lehne.

The closet was dim, but there was enough light to examine the entire inside of it. On each of the walls, Jared found some shallow scratches. He traced them with his fingernails. He wondered if there had been someone else locked in here before him. He wondered if there had been another boy, and where that boy was, and whether he was still alive or not. He didn’t realize how hard he was pressing until his nails started to feel sore.

He thought of Jensen, and traced his phone number into the wall with his fingertips over and over. He bit down on his lip and recited the number forwards then backwards in his head.

He thought again about breaking out of the closet. He could call Jensen from the phone he’d seen on the bedside table last night. Jensen would come get him. He wouldn’t have to be afraid any more. He should do it.

He thought about what would happen to him if he broke out, called Jensen, and only got his voicemail. He thought about Lehne sneaking up behind him with the phone pressed to his ear. He didn’t move. He probably wouldn’t be able to break the door himself anyway.

As the time passed, his mouth grew dry as cotton and his bladder grew agonizingly full. He counted to one hundred forward. He counted down from one hundred backward. He lightly scratched the first two digits of Jensen’s number into the wall, before he realized what an incredibly stupid idea that was. He lost it and scratched desperately and uselessly at the plaster to the side of his head until the numbers were obliterated and his fingernails had fine white dust ground in under them. He wondered if he was going crazy. He wanted someone to tell him it would be okay, and that he wasn’t going crazy, and that he was really handling all of this very well.

He suddenly missed Speight so much it almost hurt. If Speight were there, he would pull Jared into his lap, and he’d understand that Jared wasn’t in the mood, because of what he’d been through the night before, and maybe he’d just hold Jared and rock him and stroke his hair and cry.

He decided that if he could choose anybody to rescue him, it would be Speight, because Speight loved him. Jensen and Whitfield might surrender him back to Pellegrino if they were ordered to. They might like him an awful lot, but nobody in the world would fight for him like Speight would.

Except, that was before he’d betrayed Speight. Maybe there wasn’t anybody in the world who would fight for him anymore.

He fell asleep for a while, and he woke up to silence and darkness. He curled tight around his abdomen. He was going to have an accident if he had to wait much longer. Lehne had to be home soon. He had to.

Jared’s thoughts dipped and drifted, but he couldn’t let go of his discomfort enough to actually fall asleep again after that.

Finally, he heard the front door open. There were footsteps on the stairs. Lehne headed straight for the bedroom, didn’t pause until he was right outside the closet door.

The lock clicked and the door swung open. Jared stared up at him, squinting a little against the sudden light.

“Please sir,” he croaked. “Please, sir, I need to use the bathroom, _please_.”

Without speaking, Lehne reached down and grabbed Jared’s arm, pulled him to his feet. Jared hissed in discomfort and pressed his hand against his groin tightly.

“Since you asked so nice,” Lehne murmured soothingly. There was something wrong in his eyes, and Jared was already learning to fear Lehne when he grinned like that.

Lehne marched him down the hall and parked him in front of the toilet, Jared waited for him to leave, but instead of leaving he grasped Jared’s upper arms and leaned his chin on Jared’s shoulder.

“Need to piss, boy?” Lehne whispered in his ear. “Been holding it like a good boy? You been a good boy today? Bet you’ve been squirming. It’s never so bad at first, but then it builds up and it builds up and it builds up. And all you want is to let it out, just relax and let go.”

“Please, sir,” Jared interrupted.

“You want permission to let go, Jared?” Lehne husked. “It’ll feel so good.”

“Please, sir,” Jared said again.

Lehne’s right hand slid down Jared’s arm and around his abdomen to rub lightly at his belly. Jared trembled.

“All full, aren’t you?” Lehne asked. And thank God, thank God, his other hand dipped down to snag in Jared’s waistband and pull.

He pulled Jared’s pants down around his thighs, and then left them to wrap his hand around Jared. Jared held his breath and prayed. So close now. So close to being able to let go. God.

He didn’t care even about Lehne’s eyes on him, about Lehne’s hands on him. He bit his lip hard and waited for permission. Lehne drew in a sharp breath, and then suddenly pushed in hard with the hand cupping Jared’s belly.

Jared clamped down with his internal muscles, but it was too late. A short burst rained down into the toilet before he could stop it, sound loud in the quiet room.

He heard Lehne’s laugh in his ear, then the man ground his hips forward and pushed in hard on his stomach again. Jared was squeezed between the body at his back and the hand on his belly and he couldn’t stop himself from letting go. The relief almost made his eyes roll back in his head.

“Dirty boy,” Lehne hissed in his ear, but he held him there and let him piss.

When Jared’s bladder was empty, Lehne’s hand twined in his hair and pushed him to his knees. Lehne dropped to his knees behind him.

“Didn’t say you could, did I?”

“No, sir,” Jared mumbled. He told himself not to feel ashamed, because it wasn’t his fault he’d come so close to pissing his pants. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t hold it anymore, with Lehne pressing on him like that.

“What are you, an animal?” Lehne said. “Like a nasty fucking dog or something, just piss whenever you feel like it, is that it?”

Jared bit his lip and didn’t answer.

Lehne’s hand in his hair tightened, and then he pushed Jared forward, pushed his face down towards the toilet bowl. Jared tried to twist away so hard he could feel hair yanking free, but Lehne’s grip never loosened. His face was submerged in warm, acrid water. He couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t get away. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He was terrified that he was about to be drowned in a dirty toilet bowl.

After a few seconds, Lehne pulled him out. He gulped in air like a landed fish. Lehne was still hissing at him, but he couldn’t focus on what the man was saying over the rushing in his ears.

Then Lehne was plunging him back in. He got his hands braced on the rim of the toilet somehow, and it bought him long enough to get a deeper breath. Then Lehne overpowered him and he was forced back in.

This time, he held him under for more than a few seconds. Before long Jared was struggling desperately, heart pumping, lungs bursting, black spots in front of his eyes. He held his breath as long as he could, but he had to expel the used up air from his lungs eventually. Then he held on for a little bit longer with nothing in his aching lungs. Eventually his body overrode him and he sucked in a gulp of stinging water. Lehne instantly hauled him out to retch, choke, and gasp on the floor. Lehne waited until he’d caught his breath to do it again.

He lost count of how many times it happened.

He ended up wet and disgusting and exhausted, heaving on his side on the rug while Lehne rained down insults and unbuckled his pants. He stopped fighting completely, stopped believing anything but that Lehne was going to kill him.

He lay like a corpse while Lehne fucked him, and thought about nothing. Things were so bad he shouldn’t have been able to stand it. But for the moment he had nothing left in him, not even fear. He was numb through and through.


	8. Chapter 8

According to the guidelines of the YOAP, the first liaison meeting shouldn’t have happened until the end of the first full month of the placement. Instead, Jared had one scheduled for the beginning of the second week.

He wasn’t sure if it would be Pellegrino he’d see at the meeting or not, but he had fantasies about just walking into the office and pulling down his pants to display the bruises on his ass and hips without a word. If the liaison weren’t Pellegrino, they might listen. It would be a risk, but he was sure it would be worth it. Lehne terrifed him. Jared was trying to keep it together, but there was a part of him that grew louder every day that was certain he would never make it out of Lehne’s house alive.

If it were Pellegrino, he wondered if he’d be able to stop himself from getting on his knees and begging anyway.

Lehne brought Jared to the YOAP office in the limo. He let Jared lie on the floor during the ride, and didn’t bother him for anything the whole way. He’d spent the night before demonstrating exactly how angry he’d be if he suspected Jared of trying to tell his liaison the truth. It had been a lengthy demonstration, and it was a relief not to have to sit in the car. Lehne had seemed to feel he’d gotten his point across by the end of it. He didn’t bother coming in past the security checkpoint.

Jared was escorted to a different office than usual. The man waiting for him wasn’t Pellegrino, or Jared's old liaison. He was a stranger with brown hair and blue eyes, and he studied Jared intently as he shuffled in the door.

Jared kept his face blank and settled into his chair, barely able to conceal a wince as he set his butt down.

“Hi,” said the man. “I’m Misha. I’m your new liaison?” He smiled, friendlier than Jared was expecting. Jared knew his answering smile was probably too close to a grimace.

Why did Lehne do this to him, if he didn’t want to be found out? The pain was fierce and terrible, and Jared wanted to cry from the stress of keeping it locked down and his ass in the chair.

“Youthful Offender 24601, Jared Padalecki, sir,” he offered hoarsely. The liaison- Misha’s- eyebrows rose.

“How are you doing, Jared?” he asked. He seemed sincere. Jared wondered if Lehne had this one on his payroll, and was testing him. Or it could have been Pellegrino who was testing him. His determination to throw himself on the mercy of a stranger wavered.

“I’m fine, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Good. That’s good. So how long have you been in the program now, Jared?”

“Six months and two weeks, sir.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I- I’m very happy being part of the program, sir.” Misha’s eyebrows flickered again. A smile might have helped convince him, but Jared couldn’t. He knew that if he tried it would come off worse than if he didn’t try at all. He was too distracted by the feeling that there might have been some blood seeping in his underwear. He’d had to climb two flights of stairs to get to this office, and it had hurt. He tightened his jaw and glared straight ahead.

“So you’d recommend it to others?” Misha asked. “Other kids considering it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Really? Despite the fact that your first YOAP guardian is in fact being held in jail right now for numerous crimes?”

Jared looked at him closely, but there was just no way to tell if Misha was trying to trip him up or not.

“I’m very happy being part of the program, sir,” he finally said. He stopped meeting the man’s sharp eyes and focused on the wall over his shoulder instead.

“I see.” Misha said. “How do you like your new guardian, Jared? Frederic Lehne, is that right?”

“I’m very happy with my new guardian, sir,” Jared monotoned.

“You’re learning a lot as his apprentice?”

“I- it’s still the first week, sir. It takes time to settle in so, Mr. Lehne hasn’t started me working yet, sir.”

“Oh no?” Misha asked. Jared’s heart fluttered.

“Well, I guess it’s still early days yet.” Misha continued soothingly. “How are you spending the time off?”

“I- I don’t know, sir.” Jared cast around for something to offer. He glanced at Misha’s face and found his brow furrowed. “I read, sir? I- Mr. Lehne has a big library. That’s- that’s how I spend my time.”

“Okay. That sounds like fun. What else?”

“I... watch TV, sir? Movies? Mr. Lehne has a big screen TV, sir.”

“And what else?”

Jared swallowed and shook his head. He was pretty sure he was failing the easiest pop quiz in the world. “Nothing else, sir,” he grunted tightly.

“Alright. TV, movies, books, that’s plenty. That’s how I’d fill the time off, too. Except I’d probably add playing my mandolin to that list.” Misha paused, like he was waiting for Jared to say something to that. Jared stared over his shoulder and waited for the next question. His ass was in agony and he was almost positive that there was blood seeping. If there was, when he turned to go, Misha might see it.

“Sir, I- I need the bathroom, please,” he said quickly, before Misha could start up another line of questioning.

“Oh. No problem, sure, let me take you.”

He waited until Misha had gotten out from behind his desk and was waiting for him by the door before rising himself. Moving hurt, of course, but it was a huge relief to have his ass off the seat again. The government chair had about as much padding as a stack of folded newspapers.

They didn’t meet anybody else in the halls, and Misha stopped at a water cooler, plucked a paper cup from a stack and pointed at a door a few feet on with a smile. “Boy’s room,” he said. Jared did his best to smile back and appear relaxed as he passed the man and slipped inside.

Though the YOAP was a new program, the building it was located in was old. The bathroom was dingy, with fluorescent lighting turning everything an unappealing shade, including his shaking hands. He hid in a stall and undid his trousers quickly. There was a small stain of blood in his underwear. None of it had reached through to his pants yet, but he was glad he’d come to the bathroom when he did.

He folded up toilet paper into a thick square, positioned it in the seat of his underwear and gingerly pulled his pants back up.

“Jared, you all set in there?” Misha knocked on the door, and then Jared heard it swing open.

“Yes, sir,” he called. He flushed the toilet and scrabbled the lock on the stall door open. Misha was standing just inside the door, and made no secret of casting an eagle eye over him from head to toe. He could feel Misha still watching him as he hustled over to the sink to wash up.

Back in the office, Misha leaned forward over his desk and just looked at Jared for a long minute. Jared focused on the wall behind his head and tried to breathe normally.

“You know, Jared, I’m here to make sure you’re happy and thriving in your placement. If there’s something about it that you’re having trouble with, you can tell me. I’m here to help.”

Jared took a deep breath. “Thank you, sir, but I’m fine. I just feel a little sick today. Nothing’s really wrong.”

Misha nodded thoughtfully. “Alright. Well, just remember that I can be reached anytime if anything arises.”

Jared was driven home by Lehne’s driver, who must’ve dropped Lehne off somewhere before returning to pick Jared up. He spent the car ride wondering if he should’ve told Misha the truth after all. He was also worried about the fact that Misha hadn’t passed him any thumbdrives, or given any indication at all that Pellegrino had spoken to him. Why wouldn’t Pellegrino have used the liaison meeting to get the ball rolling already? Jared didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for at Lehne’s house. How was he going to be out in a few weeks, if he couldn’t even get started yet?

*****

Jared lay on Lehne’s bed next to the phone, Misha’s card in his hand. When he heard the car in the driveway he quickly slipped it back into his pocket. The card was already worn at the corners from his nervous thumbing. All afternoon he’d lain here. He’s even picked up the receiver a few times, and started dialing. He just couldn’t quite go through with it.

Lehne called to him from downstairs. Jared hurried down to him, feeling sick with fear.

Lehne sat in his easy chair. He beckoned to Jared to come stand between his legs.

“Take off your shirt,” he ordered.

Jared obeyed.

“Pants and underwear, now.” Jared stripped quickly. Lehne pointed at the underwear in the floor.

“Give those to me.” He held out his hand for them. Jared silently picked them up and handed them over. Lehne peeled the shredding, stained toilet paper out of them with a strange twist to his mouth. Jared tried to convince himself that Lehne would go easy on him that night. He’d have to be pleased with Jared for keeping his mouth shut at the YOAP office. He’d protected Lehne. Lehne must see that, holding the crumpled ball of toilet paper in his hand.

“Give me your pants,” Lehne said. Jared bent gingerly and scooped them up. Lehne plucked the pants from Jared’s grasp. He inspected the seat of them. Then he rifled through the pockets. Jared stifled a cry when Lehne pulled out the card. “What’s this?” he asked. His brow arched when Jared doesn’t answer immediately.

“S-sir it’s my liaison’s card.”

“Ah yes. I see. How did that go, by the way?”

“It was fine, sir.” Lehne wasn’t even looking at him. He was turning the card over, examining it elaborately from every angle.

“You have a nice chat with this Mr. Collins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And tell me Jared, what did you and Mr. Collins find to talk about?”

“J-just the normal things, sir.”

“The normal things. I see. That really clears things up for me Jared. You have quite a way with words, you know that?” With a casual flick of his wrist, Lehne sent the card into the wastebasket next to his chair. “What, exactly, are the normal things you chatted about with your new friend, Jared? If you don’t mind my asking, of course. Do you mind that I’m asking, Jared?”

“No, sir. Of course not, sir. I- he just asked me if I liked the program. And I said ‘yes.’”

“Mmhmm. Interesting. What else?”

“He asked me what I did in my free time, sir.”

“And you said...”

“I told him you had a library, sir, and a big screen TV.”

“And?”

“I- I told him I hadn’t started working yet, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I said I was still settling in- and he didn’t act like it was a problem, sir.”

“Oh, it’s not. Don’t worry Jared. I have two weeks before I have to start you on any actual work.”

“He asked if I’d recommend the program to others, sir.”

“And you said you would, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Jared, that all sounds very good, but I admit I’m still a little puzzled about one thing.” Lehne pulled Jared in close between his legs. His hands settled on Jared’s hips, and his fingers traced lightly over Jared’s skin, making him shiver. “What I’m wondering, Jared, is why, if everything went so very smoothly and you were such a good, happy little apprentice, I would get a call today, requesting another liaison appointment for you next week? Hmmm? That’s strange isn’t it?”

Lehne’s eyes were flat and still like a snake’s. Jared’s breath caught in his chest. “I told them no, of course. I told them I was a busy man who couldn’t spend all my time driving you to unnecessary appointments. It did leave me wondering why they would do that though.”

Lehne fingertips slid back, touching and following the crease of his buttocks. Jared waited every minute for them to hurt, but they just lightly ran across his skin. “What’s the matter, Jared, cat got your tongue?”

Lehne’s eyes slid down over his body.

The phone rang suddenly, startling Jared badly. “Saved by the bell,” Lehne mused. He lifted the phone and brought it to his ear. “Hello? Oh, Aunt Andrea, yes, Celia did tell me you’d called.”

Jared realized it was probably Speight’s mother. Jared had met Andrea Speight at Thanksgiving, where she’d ignored him until she wanted him to clear the table. Speight got angry and said they were treating Jared as family, not a servant. She hadn’t seemed convinced, but she hadn’t asked again at Christmas. She hadn't said anything at all to him at Christmas.

“And how is poor Richie holding up? You know I tried to call him last week, I have a line on a really good attorney, the best, but I couldn’t get through... Oh no, it’s no trouble... Well, we’re family, aren’t we?” Lehne suddenly pinched his ass hard.

Jared jumped and swallowed down a yelp.

“Well of course, Aunt Andrea... No, I know... I know, I know.” Lehne rolled his eyes. He smiled at Jared and his hand strayed around to Jared’s penis.

Jared’s stomach roiled.

Gradually Lehne’s fingers wrapped around him and started to tighten. “My dear, I know what you’re going through now... Of course I do...”

Pain began to build. Lehne met his eyes and smiled, then looked down. Jared followed his gaze to see Lehne’s knuckles whitening and his own flesh red and tortured, peeking through Lehne’s fingers. He closed his eyes quickly against the threatening tears. Lehne’s hand tightened more. A low gasp forced itself out and Jared felt his knees beginning to shake. Blood rushed in his ears. Lehne gave one last fierce squeeze and Jared had to press the back of his hand to his mouth to stifle a whimper. Then, finally, Lehne let go.

“...which we both know is not true, and so would the rest of them if they’d just think about it...”

Jared opened his eyelids to find Lehne’s eyes were hot on his. Lehne began to wrap up the call. He assured Andrea Speight that he’d call her back later, and hung up the phone.

An instant later, his hands were all over Jared, flipping him around and yanking him down to sit in his lap. Lehne’s chest was hot against Jared’s back, even through his crisp white shirt. His hands roamed Jared’s chest, thighs, groin, sometimes gentle, and then fiercely pinching and pulling at Jared’s skin when he least expected it. They clutched tightly around his thighs, to hold him still while Lehne ground up against him. Then they moved to Jared’s wrists, grasped them and positioned them so he was holding onto the arms of the chair.

“Up,” Lehne growled in his ear. He hauled Jared up with an arm around his chest so he could reach between them. Jared helped, though he felt almost feverish with dread and irregular trembles racked his body. Lehne’d hurt him so badly the night before, there was no way the sex would be anything but agony.

Lehne freed his cock and rolled a condom from his pocket down over it. His hands moved to Jared’s hips, and he moved Jared into position, then began to drive into him in one slow thrust. It hurt. Jared bit his lip and tried to cast his mind far away. Lehne and what he was doing faded out around him.

After a while, Jared was brought out of his drifting by the tightening of his collar. Lehne had stopped moving inside him, but he’d forced the fingers of one hand through his collar. He clutched Jared's groin with the other. Jared stiffened and tried to hold still. If Lehne tightened his lower hand, Jared would be in agony, but if Lehne twisted his upper hand, Jared wouldn’t be able to get any air in at all. And Lehne seemed to adore taking away Jared’s air.

“So, Jared, I’m still waiting to hear what you told that shitstick at the appointment today,” Lehne purred in his ear.

“Please, sir, nothing. I didn’t tell him anything,” Jared rasped. Lehne’s lower hand clenched and Jared shrieked. Then Lehne’s hand around his collar twisted, cutting his windpipe off completely.

“Really? Nothing?” Lehne’s hands released briefly. Jared sucked in a greedy breath.

“No, sir, nothing. _Ple_ -” Lehne squeezed his throat shut and tightened on his groin again. Tears began to stream down Jared’s face. He writhed silently, but Lehne was too strong

“If it were nothing, they wouldn’t have called me at my office today, Jared,” Lehne gritted, his breath hot and wet. “If it were nothing, I wouldn’t have to be wasting my time fucking around like this. There is something. Tell me what you told him, or what you didn’t tell him, or I’m going to have to waste the rest of my evening on this, and believe me, Jared, you will not like it.” Black spots danced in front of Jared’s eyes, and when Lehne gave an extra jerk with his lower hand he could swear his heart stopped at the spike of pain.

Just before he blacked out, Lehne released him. Jared gulped in air as fast as he could manage.

“Sir, please, stop,” he choked out, as soon as he could make any sound at all. His voice was almost gone, shredded and hoarse. “Speight, it was Speight. They asked me about him. I didn’t say anything. I don’t know anything. But they must think I might. That’s all I can think of. Please, sir.” His voice gave out and he sobbed a wheezy, almost silent sob.

“That’s all?” Lehne asked, lips so close to Jared’s ear he could feel them moving.

He quickly bobbed his head.

“They’re just asking you about Richard?”

He bobbed his head again.

“Alright,” Lehne sighed. Without further ado, he dumped Jared off his lap. “Go get cleaned up. I’m starting on dinner now and you have thirty minutes. Get dressed and do something to control that fucking bleeding. I promise you, you bleed all over my dining room chair and you won’t be sitting for a month. Now go.” With a strong nudge from Lehne’s toe, Jared pushed himself up from the floor and stumbled out of the room.

*****

The liaison appointment with Misha Collins was on a Monday, and by Saturday morning Jared was healing well enough that he could mostly forget about how painful moving had been for a day or two. Lehne had pressed in a few more bruises, and the sex hadn't exactly been gentle, but generally things had been surprisingly calm the rest of the week. Jared had learned not to drink a lot of water before bedtime, so waiting for Lehne to come home from work each day hadn’t ever been torture like that first day. Lehne hadn’t tried to strangle him again, or suffocate him, or drown him. Jared was kind of hopeful that maybe Lehne had finally realized Jared didn’t need to be terrorized any more to be obedient.

There was still a low-level hum of fear that sprang up whenever Jared had to spend time around Lehne, but it was beginning to seem like the situation might at least be manageable for a few weeks. He’d decided that if Pellegrino didn’t try to contact him at or before the next monthly liaison meeting, he’d tell Misha, or whoever was there, everything. He meant it this time. He would keep under Lehne’s radar until then.

It was hard keeping under Lehne’s radar when they were in the kitchen, though, as they were on Saturday morning. Lehne had decided to teach Jared how to cook a few days before, and Jared had spent every day since praying he’d give up on the idea. Everything had to be done a certain way, and Lehne’s explanations were sometimes confusing. Jared knew he’d understand faster if he weren’t so nervous the whole time, but he was always aware of how many weapons surrounded them in the kitchen: knives, pans, pots of scalding water. Jared couldn’t forget how vicious Lehne could turn in a heartbeat; it didn’t matter if Lehne was smiling or laughing or humming under his breath.

When the phone rang, Jared almost sagged with relief. He had to finish chopping spinach and tomatoes, and it would be so much easier without Lehne hanging over his shoulder. After he’d chopped them, hopefully, the morning’s cooking lesson would be done.

“Aunt Andrea,” Lehne said smoothly, tucking the phone under his ear so he could stir the sauteeing onions. “To what do I owe the pleasure of _this_ call?”

Jared started dicing the second tomato.

“I see.” Lehne’s usual smarminess went a bit sour. Jared’s heart picked up a little. “Well, Aunt Andrea, I’m really not sure what... Of course. Well, of course I do. That’s not-”

With quick, inconspicuous movements Jared scooped the diced tomato into a bowl and wiped down the cutting board. Even when all the ingredients were going to go in together, Lehne insisted on the board being cleaned between chopping two different foods.

“I’m sorry, but I fail to see your point here... Mmhmm... Well-”

Jared dumped the spinach out of the salad spinner and patted it a bit dryer with paper towels. He threw them away and started chopping it. He thought the recipe said chop coarsely, which he was certain meant into big pieces, but he didn’t know exactly what size the book considered coarse, or what size Lehne considered coarse. His palms started to sweat, but he didn’t dare stop to wipe them.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t see how you think it would even help so- No, I know Uncle Alfie helped me out that time. No, I know- you _don’t_ have to repeat the story to me, Aunt Andrea, Jesus, I was there!”

Lehne’s hand was clenching the spatula hard enough to snap it.

Jared bit down on the inside of his cheek and kept chopping rhythmically.

“And I hope you’ll recall that ten years later I returned that favor by getting Richard- no, Godammit, you listen to me you- No! I’m afraid I do not agree! No! That is absolutely fucking ridiculous and- Oh for fuck’s sake. I’m sorry if your delicate sensibilities are shattered but I’d think right now that a little _salty language_ would be the least of your worries!”

Jared thought he was finished with the spinach, but he was afraid to draw attention to himself by looking for the next step in the cookbook, which was on the other side of Lehne. Instead he chopped at it a little more. Maybe coarsely chopped wasn’t supposed to be quite that big anyway.

“Look, Aunt Andrea, I sent him a lawyer, a damn good one. That’s all I can do. A visit is not going to help him that I can see, and quite frankly I’ve got my own career to think of so- No that is not- That- No _you_ listen- You can’t do that. No, you cannot. Well, that will certainly present a problem for me, but it’s not going to make me visit Richard so in the end-” Jared could practically hear the tendons popping out in Lehne’s neck, he’d gotten a shade of red that was frighteningly close to the tomatoes he’d just cut, and whatever Andrea Speight wanted, Jared felt a hatred for her that he’d never felt for her before, even when she was ordering him around like a servant.

Without warning, Lehne pulled the phone from his ear and stabbed the off button hard. “Stupid. Fucking. Cunt,” he said to it calmly. Then he put it back on the charger and came to check on Jared’s progress.

“What the fuck is this?” he exclaimed, grabbing a fistful of spinach and then throwing it back on the board. Jared flinched but otherwise held completely still, knife still in his right fist.

It occured to him suddenly that he had a knife in his hand. He remembered exactly where the knife went in that killed Liam in under a minute. It would be so easy to just turn and push. Lehne kept his knives very sharp. One push and all of it would be over. He was already a killer, in the eyes of the law. What did he have left to lose? But he hesitated a second too long.

The pan seemed to come out of nowhere. From the corner of his eye Jared caught the flicker of movement, but by the time what he was seeing registered, pain was already exploding through his skull. He dropped to the floor like a rag doll. Blood trickled in his ear, the knife was gone from his hand, and Lehne advanced on him, screaming something that he couldn’t quite make out. He was about to die, and somehow all he could focus on was how it was his own stupid fault. He should’ve gotten away from Lehne four days before.

  
He was in Lehne’s bed when he came to. He was sore all over, and his thoughts were sluggish and dreamy. It took him longer than it should’ve to recognize that the rushing sound he heard was the shower, not just his head. He looked around the room. Everything looked blurry, but he could see well enough to see that he was alone. His eyes landed on the nightstand. The phone was right there. He could just pick it up and dial, if he had anyone he wanted to talk to. His head felt swollen, like his brain was pressing against the inside of his skull. He thought he might be dying. If he was, he at least wanted to talk to somebody before he went. He was so tired of being in it alone. He fumbled for the receiver.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hello?” Jensen said, smothering a yawn. The day was bright and sunny, and Jensen had been sipping coffee at his kitchen table, trying to rouse the energy to make breakfast, when his cell phone rang. There was quiet for a minute, then a rattling breath expelled right into the receiver. Jensen’s gut clenched and he began praying for a crank call.

“Hello?” he repeated. “Who’s this?”

“Hello?” The voice was slightly slurred. “Sir, S’Jared.”

“Jared? Where are you, Jared? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. M’okay, sir. Just wanted... wanted to tell you...” his voice drifted off. “I dunno,” he finished, with a little laugh. Jensen had talked with a few people in his life who sounded like that. They’d all been either drunk or high.

“Jared, where are you?” he tried again. There was no answer, just a slow, wet, breath. Shit. “Jared? Are you alright? Are you there?”

“’M sorry,” Jared mumbled.

“Why are you sorry, Jared?” He stood up carefully, as though moving slower would somehow coax Jared to talk.

“I dunno. I jus’ am.”

“Jared, where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll come talk to you face to face, alright?”

“I don’t...” Jared’s voice drifted off.

“Jared. _Jared_. Where are you?”

“The bedroom.”

“The bedroom where Jared? What bedroom?”

“Oh, wait, shhh...” Jared slurred. Then there were a few seconds of wet inhalation, and then complete silence. Jensen pressed the phone to his ear and shouted ‘Jared’ into it about five times, waiting a few seconds in between. He pulled it away and looked at the seconds still ticking on the call, but when he put it to his ear again there was nothing, not even background static. Jared must’ve hung up, or Jensen would still have heard him breathing. He pressed end before he could overthink it.

“Shit,” Jensen hissed, heading for his bedroom. He dialed Misha Collins as he yanked open his drawer and pulled out his badge and gun.

“Misha, listen, what’s the address for the guy who’s got Jared Padalecki?”

“Uh. I can get it in five minutes. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Jared called me. He sounded disoriented. Maybe he just broke into the liquor cabinet, but if that’s what it was he was probably halfway to alcohol poisoning, the way he sounded.”

“You think he’d been drinking?”

“I don’t know. He hung up before I could get anywhere with him. I’m getting in my car now. Where am I going?”

“It’s in the suburbs. Weston. I’ll call the office and get the exact address, you just get on the road and start heading that way. Should I get the police involved?”

“I don’t know. Jesus. Fuck. I don’t know.”

“Never mind. I’ll meet you there, then we’ll decide if we need back-up.”

“Thanks. Yeah, that’s- Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Jensen. This is my job.” Misha’s calming tone was helpful, and at least Jensen was determined to finally see Jared today. He’d spent the past two weeks trying to see Jared, and the closest he’d gotten was a second hand report from Misha. The waiting and worrying had been driving him quietly insane.

  
Misha called back five minutes later with an address and a plan to wait out front for Jensen to arrive, since he was about seven minutes closer. Jensen looked at the clock on the dash and counted backwards, figured that would put them there about half an hour after the call from Jared. Not bad, unless the kid had ODed and needed CPR or something.

He just didn’t want to get Jared in trouble if he’d done something harmless like pass out drunk. Any offense could really screw up his chance at parole. The YOAP program had very strict penalties for abusing it.

Anyway, Jared had been well enough to dial a phone and talk. He’d be okay for long enough for Jensen and Misha to arrive and sort things out in person.

He also gave Charles a call on the way. Charles said he'd head into the office immediately, and Jensen tried unsuccessfully to convince him that that probably wasn’t necessary. Charles was a workoholic like few people Jensen had ever met. Jensen knew he loved his family, but he rarely needed to be asked twice to drop everything and rush in to the office for a case.

Jensen arrived at Lehne’s house in Weston and found a space half a block from Lehne’s front door. He spotted Misha parked literally right across the street from the house. Under the pretext of holding his phone up to his ear, he blocked his face and walked to Misha’s car, slipped into the passenger side as fast as he could without looking suspicious. Not that he thought Lehne would be looking for anybody out there. The whole thing was probably just nothing, and Jensen would end up looking like an idiot.

“See anything?” he asked.

“I’ve seen the light in the front window go off. Not a glimpse of either Jared or Lehne,” Misha answered. His hair was sticking up a little on one side, and his tie was crooked. It reminded Jensen that he probably looked about as put together himself.

“How do you want to play this, official visit, or should we do some snooping around?”

“Official visit. As his liaison I have the legal right to do drop-ins. Whether something’s going on or not, it’s better we do it all by the book.”

Jensen nodded, hand already on the doorknob. Then Misha stiffened beside him. He followed Misha’s gaze and saw that the garage door was opening.

A limousine pulled out smoothly. As it passed, Jensen strained his eyes and saw a driver, complete with chauffeur hat. The back windows were far too dark to make out a thing. Jensen smiled gleefullly at their luck, and got a slight twitch from Misha in return.

When Jensen had first met Misha Collins, it was in the hotel bar at a criminal psychology conference. He’d seemed a lot more easy-going then. Of course, even leaving aside that Misha seemed to be a decent human being who would care about the welfare of any child, Jensen was figuring out that this situation was personal for him.

He’d called Misha as a last-ditch attempt, turning to a man who was no more than a casual aquaintance in desperation when no one at the FBI would even tell him whether Jared was in custody there or not. He hadn’t expected Misha to volunteer to take over Jared’s case. But the YOAP was something Misha really believed in. He believed in the chance to teach kids real skills instead of locking them up to learn terrible habits from a bunch of other budding criminals. The idea that a criminal had somehow gotten approved as a guardian had really shaken him up, and he’d been especially disturbed when Jensen had mentioned that his liaison meetings had been used for other purposes by the FBI.

Jensen had been glad he’d gotten Misha on Jared’s case, once he’d gotten a solid idea of how seriously he took his job, and how upset he was by Jared’s experience in the program. He just hoped bringing him to Jared’s doorstep today hadn’t been a mistake.

“Perfect time for a drop-in,” Jensen said, shoving aside his doubts. “Let’s go.”

The door, of course, was locked, and whether Jared had been riding in the limo, or couldn’t come to the door, nobody answered the doorbell. Jensen pulled out his lock picks.

The house was quiet and dim. The drapes were drawn on every window, cocooning the interior completely. They headed down the front hallway, towards the room Misha had seen the light in, and Jensen already knew what they were going to find halfway down the hall, the scent was so strong. They emerged into a kitchen, every square inch of which had been recently cleaned. The floor hadn’t even finished drying. Jensen inhaled a big whiff of lemon cleaner, and told himself that it didn’t really mean anything, but he was assailed by images of every crime scene he’d ever visited where someone thought they’d pull a cover up with a bucket of suds and a mop. He wondered if they peeled up the linoleum, whether they’d find faint traces of watery blood puddling at the edges.

They searched the downstairs together, opening every closet and going down to the basement to check every corner there. It was a large house, and even moving fast, the search of the first floor took fifteen minutes. They found nothing even hinting at wrongdoing. Jensen could see Misha beginning to get a little more lighthearted.

“Maybe that limo was Lehne taking Jared to the hospital to get his stomach pumped,” he offered as they jogged up the main staircase.

“Maybe,” Jensen answered. The sullen kid Misha had described from his meeting with Jared last week had rung every one of Jensen’s alarm bells. But Jared had been through a lot. Anybody would be feeling the strain. If he’d gotten himself drunk, Jensen would understand it. But he remembered Jared’s stuttering voice on the phone, and thought that even if Jared hadn’t come out and said it, that call had been nothing more or less than him begging Jensen for help.

There were more bedrooms upstairs than a sane person would know what to do with. None of them particularly stood out as belonging to Jared, but they knew instantly they’d found the master bedroom when they reached the end of the hall. If the size hadn’t given it away, the silk bedsheets would’ve. They were rumpled and bloody.

They approached the bed together in silence. Jensen glanced at Misha and caught a devastated expression on his face.

“We still don’t know anything,” he reassured him. “This could just be the scene of a spectacularly bloody accident.”

Misha nodded at him, then looked back at the bed and squinted before stiffening. Jensen followed his gaze, but it took him a minute to see what Misha spotted. Then he saw and felt just the tiniest bit lightheaded.

He pulled out his cellphone to get his team there. Next to him, Misha was making his own call.

Jensen got Charles’s voicemail. “Charles. I’m at the house. There’s blood on the sheets and there are handcuffs on the bedposts,” he paused and gathered himself. “So far no sign of where Jared is. Get here soon.”

While Misha was finishing up his call, Jensen took a look under the bed. There was a trunk under there, padlocked shut, and it didn’t look quite big enough to hold Jared, but he had to check, just in case. Of all the many times in his job he’d had to do something he didn’t want to do, this was right at the top of the list. He picked the lock with Misha standing behind him, one hand over his mouth. Misha was not really trained for this, Jensen knew. He was a social worker and counselor, not law enforcement.

He braced himself and lifted the lid.

Inside were some things that were clearly restraints, some that were normal sex toys, and some things that Jensen couldn’t identify by name, but that looked to him like intruments of torture.

He dropped the lid closed and stared at the edge of the mattress for a moment so he wouldn’t have to meet Misha’s eye too soon. Some things were better to process on your own, easier to repress that way.

His phone rang. It was Charles, who assured him that the whole team was heading out immediately and would be there within thirty minutes. Jensen told him that Jared was still missing, and made sure there was an APB out on Lehne’s limo. His eyes fell on a deadbolt nestled under the doorknob of the closet door, and his heart gave a thump of dread. He grabbed Misha’s sleeve and pointed to the deadbolt.

“Charles, listen, I gotta go, keep searching.”

“Okay,” Charles agreed. “We’ll be there soon. Just find him, Jensen.”

“Yes sir,” Jensen said. It meant something that Charles was using his first name. Charles had been married to his cousin Samantha for eight years now, and he’d lost count of the number of nights he’d spent having family dinner at the Whitfield-Smith’s, but on the job they always tried to act professional, impersonal. They didn’t want questions of favoritism on the team. Jensen didn’t want to examine how shaken he must sound if Charles was using his first name.

He hung up the phone. Misha was at his shoulder, waiting for him to take the next step, possibly the final step in the search. “Alright,” he gritted, meeting Misha’s eyes before breaking away to head for the closet. The deadbolt was the only lock. He drew it back and took a deep breath. “Jared? Are you in there?”

There was no reason to lock the deadbolt if there was no one to keep in. There was no answer, and he could see the corpse in his mind’s eye, curled up silently on the other side of the door.

He opened the door and saw it there.

Jared’s body was propped up in the corner. It was so exactly how he knew it would be, for a second he had hope that he was hallucinating. He hadn’t pictured the ropes though, and the illusion shattered.

Jared’s wrists were tied to his ankles, keeping him curled, everything pulled up tight. His darkly bruised knees were forced almost up to his ears. His head was tipped forward so his bangs hung down and hid his face. There were drying streaks of blood on him, small amounts but it was everywhere, on his arms, on his shins, on the tops of his bare feet. Jensen couldn’t see a shirt or pants. Blood darkened the hair around his visible ear to glistening black in the dim light, and dripped down his neck.

“Oh God,” Misha breathed. “Is he-”

Jensen focused on the blood.

“No,” he said. His phone was already raising to his ear again as his thumb danced across the buttons. “He’s still bleeding. His heart’s still beating. He’s alive.”

Misha went down onto his knees and put a hand on Jared’s shoulder. He began calling Jared’s name softly. Jensen got his pocketknife out and tapped Misha with it until he turned around and took it. He watched Misha saw delicately at the ropes while he dealt with the 911 dispatcher with about a quarter of his mind. After a minute, Misha got through the rope tying Jared’s wrists to his ankles. He stretched Jared’s skinny legs out full length. Even in the dim lighting of the closet, they could see the dark spread of bruising covering Jared’s abdomen. Next Misha cut away the rope tying Jared’s wrists together, and then finally his ankles. Under the rope was yellowing bruising, but nothing that looked fresh. Either Jared was already unconscious when he was bound this time, or he’d decided it was fruitless to struggle against it. Jensen didn’t know which option made him feel sicker. Jared was naked except for his collar, and that revelation didn’t help with the nausea at all.

The dispatcher buzzed in his ear, and he roused himself to report the injuries they’d discovered. She had a nice voice, very motherly, and she assured him that an ambulance was on its way.

Misha rested each of Jared’s hands by his sides, and leaned in to get a couple fingers under his jaw and take a pulse. He tilted Jared’s face up while he was doing it. He shot Jensen a wide-eyed look over his shoulder. Jared’s face had been battered: one eye swollen shut and his lip split, a swollen purple knot on one cheekbone. There were bruises around his throat. Jensen reported that to the dispatch lady too, and she assured him again that help was on the way.

Misha leaned back and took Jared’s hand so he could take his pulse at the wrist instead. He pressed his fingers in, but he seemed to be having trouble finding it. His hands were shaking, and he had to move around to several spots on Jared’s wrist.

They both froze as Jared showed the first signs of returning to consciousness. He shuddered and then he moaned low and then he rolled his head restlessly to face the wall away from Misha.

“Hey,” Misha said. “Jared, can you hear me? It’s alright now. You’re going to be alright.”

“He might be coming around,” Jensen reported to the dispatcher. “He’s moving a little bit but he hasn’t opened his eyes.”

Jared moaned again and his eyelids started fluttering. His lips moved and his throat worked, but nothing came out but another meaningless noise of unhappiness.

“I think he’s trying to say something, but he can’t,” Jensen told the dispatcher.

Jared’s brow furrowed, and then his eyes dragged open. They shut again immediately, but then they were blinking open again and staying open.

“Hey, Jared. Hey. That’s good. That’s right. Take your time, there’s no rush,” Jensen said.

Jared’s eyes rolled in his head like a spooked horse’s. They landed on Jensen, and stayed there.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, squatting. “You with me?”

“Jens’n?” Jared mumbled.

“Yeah, Jared. I’m here.”

Jared nodded sluggishly, then winced and pressed his eyes shut tight.

"It’s alright, don’t try to move, okay?”

“’M in the closet,” Jared mumbled, eyes opening to settle on Jensen again.

“Do you remember how you got in here, Jared?”

“Lehne,” Jared mumbled. “Lehne puts me in here. Where’d he go?”

“He’s not here, Jared,” Jensen said.

“There’s an APB out on him now, and your whole team is on its way here,” Misha broke in. “Do you know where he was going?”

Jared's eyes flitted to Misha. Fear tightened his face.

“Hello, Jared. You remember me from our meeting last week, right?” Misha said.

Jared rolled his eyes away from Misha and fastened them back on Jensen. “Lehne. Where is he? Is he coming back?”

“We saw him leave about half an hour ago,” Jensen said soothingly. “The paramedics are on their way and Misha and I aren’t leaving your side until they get here. You’re safe now.”

“Safe now,” Jared repeated to himself.

“Yup. Totally safe.”

Jared took a deep breath and made a visible effort to pull himself together.

“He’ll come back soon, Jensen.” Jared warned, and then smiled, loopy and young and frightened. If Jensen hadn’t already known that Jared was messed up because he was calling Jensen by his first name, that unhinged smile would’ve done it. “Please don’t leave me alone with him.”

Jensen swallowed and tried to smile back. “I’d shoot him in the head before I’d let him so much as look at you again,” he promised. It was the truth, and he ignored the look Misha shot him to focus on Jared’s reaction.

“Lotsa paperwork,” Jared warned, then started to laugh and ended up grimacing and moaning. “Jens’n,” Jared mumbled through clenched teeth.

“Yeah?” Jensen got down close to him. Jared’s voice was soft and garbled. Misha withdrew back out of the closet to give Jensen more room. Jared flinched lightly away from the shuffling.

“Jens’n, please don’t leave?” Jared mumbled.

“I won’t. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”

“I w-want...” Jared started, then stopped to try to reach for Jensen, but he must have been having double vision. His gore-streaked fingers patted at the air a foot to the right of Jensen’s shoulder.

“I’m right here,” Jensen murmured, and guided Jared’s hand lightly to his shoulder. Jared latched on with surprising ferocity and tugged at Jensen. Jensen allowed himself to be drawn in close enough that he had to brace himself against the wall with his free hand so he didn’t wind up falling on top of Jared.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said quietly, right in Jared’s face.

“I think I’m sick. I want my parents,” Jared said and then relaxed his grip a little. “I w-want my Mom to come. I don’t feel good. I- I- where are my Mom and Dad?”

“Jared, you’re going to be okay.” Jared’s grip tightened up and his eyes snapped open. “I’m going to take care of you, okay? I’ll call your parents first chance I get, but I’ll be here to take care of you in the meantime, okay?” He tried to catch Jared’s eye, and for a minute he succeeded. Before he could decide if his reassurances were doing any good or not, he’d already lost Jared’s focus again. Jared looked around, eyeing the wall next to him and then the clothes hanging on the bar above him.

“Jensen,” he asked, and his voice had dropped almost to a whisper. “Are we still in the closet?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jensen answered, and Jared’s whole body shuddered.

“Why?” Jared asked, louder. Jensen leaned back so he wasn’t looming so much. “Why are we still in here? Why hasn’t it- Why hasn’t it changed?”

“It’s only been a few minutes since I found you, Jared. We’ve been afraid to move you, so we’re waiting for the EMTs to get here. We don’t want to hurt you accidentally, okay? Do you understand?”

“Please,” Jared mumbled. He hauled at Jensen, trying to lever himself away from the wall. His lips moved, but he didn’t seem to be talking to Jensen anymore. Jensen let himself be pulled in, instead of letting Jared pull himself up. “Please...” he made out. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. Please.”

Tentatively, Jensen pulled Jared’s hands free from his shirt and reached for Jared’s shoulders. Jared’s muscles twitched at the touch and his skin was damp and cool, but then after a second he relaxed into it a little, and his eyes wandered from Jensen’s hand to his face.

“He’ll be back,” he mumbled. “Please, let’s get out of here. I don’t want to be here.”

“We just have to wait for the EMTs,” Jensen offered helplessly, “You’re safe. We just have to wait for the EMTs, and then we can get you out of there, okay Jared?” Misha tapped him on the shoulder, holding something out to him. He was giving Jensen a bed sheet. He didn’t even realize Misha had gone anywhere.

“Just- get him out of there,” Misha said darkly. “Lehne's clearly already moved him and... do you really want to leave him in there til the paramedics come?”

“We’re not supposed...” Jensen argued half-heartedly. He looked back down at Jared and his words dried up. Jared’s eyes were dark and glazed. He was watching Jensen’s face, and Jensen didn’t know how much he understood, but he did know that Jared was shivering with fear and just waiting for Jensen to give him the verdict. If Jensen said he had to stay in the closet, he wondered if Jared would start struggling to get out on his own again, or if he’d give up, and just shiver in silence.

For a second, Jensen was struck by the thought that if he didn’t _know_ this was Jared, he would have thought that this kid was nothing like the Jared from GIS. Jared at GIS was smart and friendly and impressively mature. This kid was just exhausted, dumb with fear, stretched to the limits of his sanity. And he was looking to Jensen for help.

“Fuck it,” Jensen said under his breath. “We’re getting out of here, alright Jared? No more closet. No more fucking closet.”

“No more fucking closet,” Jared repeated. “Let’s go.”

“Do you think you can stand?” he asked. Jared rolled his head against the wall in a slow lazy no.

“No,” he mumbled. “Let’s just go.”

“I can carry you out,” Jensen said. “But it might hurt a little, okay? Moving’s gonna hurt a little. I’ll be as careful as I can-”

“S’ok,” Jared said. “S’ok. Let’s just go.”

“Okay,” Jensen nodded. “Okay. I’m just going to, just going to pull you forward a little to get this sheet around you... that’s right... nice and easy...”

Jared groaned a little, but let himself be tilted forward without resistance, head flopping like his neck muscles had been cut. Jensen supported him as best he could one-armed while wrapping the sheet around as tightly as he could with the other. It was awkward, manuveuring Jared around. Jared was skinny and small for his age, but he was a teenager, not a five year old. His lanky arms flopped, and his head was surprisingly heavy when it thumped down on Jensen’s shoulder.

When he’d finally done the best he could, wrapping Jared in the sheet while hunched over in the awkward space, he wasn’t even sure whether Jared was still conscious or not. He thought about spinal injuries and internal bleeding.

He was reconsidering the whole idea when Jared panted out a breath against his neck and said softly, “Time to go?”

He was awake after all, and more coherent than Jensen would’ve guessed.

“Yeah, Jared, it’s time to go,” Jensen agreed, and hoisted Jared fully into his arms, staggered to his feet. He was careful not to bang Jared’s feet on the doorframe. They were big and floppy, like a rabbit’s feet, on the ends of his skinny legs. Jared’s head was curled against his chest. Jensen could smell the sweat and blood in his hair.

He walked steadily and tried not to jostle Jared. Misha followed behind him. He left the bedroom and carried on down the hall.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He figured that was as good a place as any to wait for the paramedics. The front door was directly ahead of them, and thanks to the huge skylight in the ceiling of the front hallway, the lighting was good. He sat on one of the bottom steps, and felt Misha sit down above him.

A hand burrowed under his coat at the small of his back, and he turned around to come eye to eye with the barrel of his gun. Misha quirked a nervous half-smile at him and gestured at the door. Jensen suddenly hoped that Lehne would come back, just so he could see Misha drop him. If Misha wouldn’t, he’d grab his gun back and do it himself.

He tugged the sheet down over Jared’s toes. Jared’s eyes were closed, and he seemed to be unconscious. He took his tie off and wadded it up into a ball that he could press against the still dripping wound above Jared’s ear. Jared groaned and scrunched his eyes in pain. His lips drew back from his teeth far enough for Jensen to see blood on them. He sent a prayer to God that the blood was coming from somewhere in Jared’s mouth, and not his internal organs.

The paramedics arrived after about fifteen minutes that had felt like an hour. Jared opened his eyes when they loaded him on the stretcher. He answered their questions in short, quiet sentences, and his gaze never left Jensen’s face for longer than a few seconds.

Jensen knew Misha should probably be the one to ride with Jared, and Jensen should be the one to guard the crime scene. He didn’t particularly care about protocol just then, though. He decided he’d be the one in the ambulance, and he’d let the rest of it work itself out however it would. He’d already let a civilian hold his weapon.

For the last six years, his entire life had been about his dream to be a GIS agent. He was one of the youngest field agents there were, and he’d worked hard to get there. He’d sacrificed most of his social life and more energy than he could measure for his fledgeling career, and never regretted it for a minute. But suddenly, he couldn’t feel why that was so important any more. He loved his job, and he knew the insanity was temporary, but with Jared’s weight still imprinted on his arms, he couldn’t think of anything he wouldn’t give if it meant the kid in front of him would be okay.

The EMTs began wheeling the stretcher out, and Jensen trotted alongside it, eyes locked with Jared’s.

Luckily, Whitfield came screeching up just as they were readying Jared to load into the back of the ambulance. Misha stepped up close behind Jensen and worked his gun back into his holster while pretending to be checking on Jared’s progress.

“Thanks,” he breathed, and Misha nodded. Jensen thanked God that he was the YOAP liaison Jensen knew and called. If Misha hadn’t been willing to give him the address in the first place, and then search the house from top to bottom with nothing but Jensen’s word that anything was even wrong, Jared would still have been locked upstairs, alone, that very second.

“Jensen, did you find him?” Charles was there barking suddenly. He didn’t even wait for an answer before leaning over Jared’s gurney, scanning him with an expert eye. Jared stared silently back at him, neither flinching nor speaking.

“Probable concussion. I’m going to ride to the hospital with him, call you from there when I know more. The EMTs say his vital signs are good, and he’s been fairly lucid since they got here.” He took Charles’s arm and turned him away from the gurney to add, lower, “We found him tied up in the closet. Upstairs. Master bedroom. He was naked. He’s been frightened and disoriented, hasn’t said much about what happened, but he said he was put there by his new guardian, Frederic Lehne.”

Charles nodded and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’d like to ride with him to the hospital. I know you might need me here, but...” Charles gave Jensen a searching look. When he turned back to Jared, his eyes were gentle.

“Jared, you’re gonna be just fine, okay?” Charles said. Jared met his eyes and nodded slowly.

“Okay, sir,” he croaked.

“And don’t you worry, because we’ve got all our resources focused on Frederic Lehne. At this point it’s only a matter of time before we’ve got him. You’re safe from him now, you understand? You’re one of ours, and you know we look after our own. You just go to the hospital and get fixed up and don’t worry about a goddam thing, okay? We’ll take care of you, you don’t have to worry about what happens next or where you’re going. Everything will be okay. I promise you.”

“Careful,” Jared said quietly. “Careful. Lehne’s... Lehne’s... a violent person. Crazy. Dangerous. Tell Cassidy and Hodge too, sir. Careful.”

“I will,” Charles answered. He reached down, and when Jared didn’t flinch, he stroked a gentle hand through Jared’s hair.

"Jensen will stay with you, okay?" Charles asked. Jared nodded and looked relieved. Charles pulled his hand away and stepped back. Without meeting Jensen’s eyes again, Charles clapped him on the shoulder and disappeared.

Jensen followed Jared and the EMTs into the ambulance. Jared’s face creased in pain whenever the gurney jerked or bumped, but he didn’t make a sound. Jensen found a place up by Jared’s head where he didn’t seem to be too in the way. He was unable to resist stroking a hand through Jared’s hair like Charles had done.

“Is this okay?” he asked. Jared nodded. He hardly said a word the rest of the ride. Jensen could tell that Jared was still more aware than he’d been when he’d first been regaining consciousness, but there was some part of him that seemed to be exhausted enough to just shut down. He answered questions in single syllables, and didn’t respond to anything unnecessary.

He didn’t even protest when the doctors rolled him away at the hospital, leaving Jensen behind in the waiting room.

*****

Jensen spent the rest of the day in a couple different hard plastic chairs in the waiting room, and the night in the hard plastic chair beside Jared’s bed. No complications developed from the concussion, antibiotics were taking care of the most serious danger, and the next afternoon, the doctors agreed that Jared could be released, provided Jensen swore to monitor him closely and stay on top of his medications. It took some arguing to get him released so soon, but there was an unexpected factor in their favor: YOAP regulations required Jared to be restrained at all times in the hospital, since it wasn't equipped with a perimeter alarm for his collar. Though it killed Jensen to see Jared's fear at being handcuffed to the bed, the silver lining was that it killed the doctors to see it too. It wasn't hard to convince them that the risks of releasing Jared early were outweighed by the psychological benefits of allowing him to recover on a couch, unrestrained, sheltered from overwhelming amounts of strangers.

Jensen was on the phone to Misha within minutes of the doctor's agreement, getting the custodial paperwork rolling. Misha sounded exhausted and dispirited, but he latched onto the next opportunity to help Jared like a terrier on a rat. Jensen didn’t know how Misha got the paperwork done and the signatures he needed on a Sunday, but within three hours of talking to Misha, Jared was installed on his couch: his legal apprentice, at least temporarily.


	10. Chapter 10

  
Jared didn’t know what to make of the fact that he was sleeping on Jensen’s couch. He didn’t know if he’d be there for more than a day or two, and he wasn’t sure where he would go whenever he did leave. Jensen’s phone was about twenty feet away, in the kitchen, and several times he thought about trying to call his parents. He never did.

He remembered dialing the phone at Lehne’s and speaking to Jensen, but he didn’t quite remember where he’d gotten the energy to do it anymore, or what he’d said to convince Jensen to come help him. If his parents did pick up the phone, and he didn’t think that they would, he guessed he didn’t really know what he'd say to them. He didn’t want to tell them what had happened, and even if he’d felt like telling them and begging them for help, he didn’t think there was anything they could do for him.

At around eight Sunday evening he was watching The Simpsons distractedly, when Jensen got a phone call. He came into the living room fifteen minutes later, and Jared kept his face blank with some effort. Every time Jensen came into the room, he half expected him to say that Pellegrino had called, and his time was up.

“Whitfield’s on his way here,” Jensen said instead. “They’ve arrested Frederic Lehne, and he wants to ask you a few questions, if you feel up for it. Also, he wants to see how you’re doing. The whole team’s been asking me how you’re doing all day.” Jensen had seemed to be getting a lot of text messages.

Jared nodded and turned back to the TV. Jensen watched him for a minute, then wandered away again. Jared thought he probably made Jensen nervous. He wondered how long he’d have to act perfectly fine before Jensen realized that he really was just fine. It would take a while for his physical injuries to heal, but the doctors had said they weren’t anything serious. Jared knew Jensen was probably more worried about his mental state, but it wasn’t like he was going to fall apart at this point. He was safe, for now. There was no reason to fall apart.

  
Whitfield brought him The Lion King, a present from his daughters. Jared examined the cover thoroughly. He’d seen it before, but he’d rather look at it than at Jensen and Whitfield.

He was belly down on Jensen’s sofa, and he wasn’t supposed to be moving much from that spot until enough days had passed that walking and sitting didn’t both hurt. He didn't like it. It left his back exposed.

Jensen offered Whitfield coffee.

“Coffee would be great,” Whitfield answered. Then added, eyebrow raised. “Painkillers?”

“He’s high as a kite,” Jensen answered cheerfully.

Whitfield snorted. Jensen left to get the coffee and Whitfield turned back to Jared.

“How do you feel, Jared?” Whitfield asked.

“I'm fine, sir. How are _you_ , sir?”

“I’m fine, thank you Jared. Better than I was this time a couple days ago.” Jared wondered why. “Better now that I know where you are.” Whitfield clarified. “The FBI were giving us the runaround for the last couple weeks. If Jensen didn’t have some friends with the YOAP, I don’t know how much longer it would’ve taken to get the info through legitimate channels.”

Jared nodded. “I’m glad you found me, sir.”

“I’m glad we found you too.”

Jared nodded again and looked back down at The Lion King.

“I know it’s probably a little bit young for you,” Whitfield said. “But it’s Lucy and Jane's favorite movie, and they insisted that you’d like it too.”

“I do like it,” Jared answered. “My little sister, Katie...” he stopped and checked to see if Whitfield was really interested. Whitfield was watching him attentively. “I watched it with her once. She brought it with her back to the hospital though, so I haven’t seen it again. I’m glad they picked that one. Please tell them thank you for me, sir.”

“I’ll do that. They’ll be delighted you liked it. They’ll probably insist on coming over and watching it with you too, sometime when you’re feeling better.”

Jared found the idea of Whitfield wanting him around his daughters strange, so he said nothing. He was probably just saying it to be nice.

“How old are they, sir?” he asked, to change the subject..

“Seven. They’re twins,” Whitfield answered. “How old is your sister?”

“She’s ele- uh, twelve now, sir. I missed her birthday this year,” Jared didn’t mean to say that second part out loud, but the drugs were messing with him. He was even slurring the slightest bit on some words. He hoped Whitfield hadn’t noticed that.

“That’s a shame,” Whitfield said. “Did you send her a present? A card?”

“No, sir.”

“I know your family haven't been in contact,” Whitfield sighed. “After Speight’s arrest, I did personally try to call them... I thought they should be informed. They never did try to reach me. I’m not sure what we can do about that, if anything, but I won’t stop trying if you don’t want me to.”

Jared shrugged.

“Jared,” Whitfield said quietly. “Did Jensen tell you that we took Lehne into custody this afternoon?”

Jared nodded.

“I understand you might not want to talk about what happened to you, but there are some questions I need to ask. There are some things he said that I really need to follow up on, if you feel up for it." He paused, but when Jared didn't say anything, he took a breath and continued, voice neutral. "The doctors told us that not all your injuries were new. They found evidence that Lehne had most likely been abusing you since the beginning of your time with him. Are they right about that?”

Jared nodded.

“Can you tell me why you didn’t try to get help sooner?”

Jared shrugged.

“Jared, look at me, please. I’m not angry with you. I’m just curious. Why did you decide to keep quiet?”

Jared looked up at him quickly. “I, uh, I was afraid, sir. I was pretty terrified of him.”

“And why did you decide to finally call for help?”

“I was concussed, sir.”

Whitfield actually laughed, and Jared smiled a little.

“Fair enough. I guess we should all be thankful for that concussion then.”

“Yes, sir,” Jared agreed.

Whitfield’s face sobered. “Tell me what happened between you and Richard Speight,” Whitfield said.

“I...What do you mean, sir?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean, Jared,” Whitfield’s voice was gentle but firm. Jared’s heart began pounding hard.

“Nothing, sir. Nothing happened. Agent Speight and I- we- got along well.”

“You never had any kind of problem with Agent Speight’s treatment of you?”

“No, sir. I, uh- Could I watch The, uh, The Lion King now, please?”

“Frederic Lehne told us some things today that I didn’t want to believe. Things that contradict what you just said. If you tell me he’s lying, I’ll believe you. I trust you Jared, more than I trust that abusive asshole. But if something did happen to you at Speight’s, it might be more beneficial than you’d think to just get it off your chest.”

“Why does it matter, sir? It’s over now. It’s done- and I-” Whitfield’s eyes had changed, and Jared wished he hadn’t said what he’d just said. “I don’t want to think about the past now. It’s not like I’m going back there, so...”

“What’s over now, Jared?” Whitfield asked.

“Charles-” Jensen cut in from the doorway, looking worried.

“Jensen,” Whitfield stared at Jensen. “If you don’t want to be here for this you can go, but don’t try to stop me asking. You know this needs to be done.” Jensen looked grim, but he brought Whitfield the coffee he was holding and sat down in the other chair.

“Jared,” Whitfield said. “Did Richard Speight order you, coerce you, or force you to have sex with him? You can just say yes or no.”

Jared took a deep breath. “It wasn’t- he never _forced_ me, sir...”

“There was sexual intercourse, between you and Richard Speight?” Whitfield asked, jaw tight.

Jared looked helplessly from him to Jensen, but they both stared back at him, grim and silent.

“Yes, sir,” he finally admitted softly to the sofa cushion. He refused to look at their faces.

“Alright. Were you afraid of what he’d do if you didn’t, or was it- a sexual relationship- something you wanted?”

“I didn’t want it, exactly but I... I mean.... things were easier when he was, uh, happy with me. It was just... an easy way to make him happy.”

Jensen stood abruptly. He was staring at the wall over Jared’s head, and his fists were clenched at his sides.

“Go or stay, Ackles, but make up your mind _now_ ,” Whitfield said.

“No. I’m here. I’ll stay,” Jensen said. He dropped back down into his chair and gripped the arms tightly. “Sorry.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Jared said. He had the idea that maybe if he could make them understand how it had been, he could stop them from looking so pained. “He wasn’t trying to hurt me, sir. He wasn’t like Frederic Lehne.”

“Did he ever hurt you physically?”

“Not like Lehne, sir. He loved me.”

“He loved you,” Whitfield repeated blankly.

“Yes, sir.” Their faces made Jared feel foolish.

“And he _never_ hurt you?”

Jared looked away.

“Were you ever afraid of him?”

Jared nodded reluctantly. “There was one time, when he was angry... about something... and he used the collar on me to- to punish me so I wouldn’t dare do it again. But I was there six months and that was the only time.”

Whitfield nodded. “What was he punishing you for?”

“Does it matter, sir?”

“It does. Was he punishing you for a valid reason, or was it something he had no right to discipline you for? It makes a difference. Misuse of your correctional collar is a big deal. Legally, it’s a different matter than if he’d hit you or hurt you some other way, not that he wouldn’t be punished for that too. Now, whatever you tell us you don’t have to worry about getting in trouble, you know that, right? If you were running away... if you messed up a case... whatever he was punishing you for, he’s the one on trial, not you, okay?”

“No sir, I- it’s not... I just... He was just mad that I was being too friendly with the team, sir,” he admitted finally.

“When was this?” Jensen asked.

“Just a day, sir.” Jared said. “I don’t really remember now.”

He could feel them both still watching him intently. He couldn’t think fast, and he suspected his face was showing everything he was feeling. It was probably the painkillers.

“What day, Jared?” Jensen pressed.

“Sir, I...”

“Tell us, Jared,” Whitfield demanded with a quick glance at Jensen.

“It was the day you said I could call you 'Jensen,’" Jared admitted. "I accidentally did when I was talking to him that night, and he got mad." Jensen nodded and looked down at his shoes. What Jared could see of his face was blank and uninformative.

“What happened?” Jensen asked stiffly of the floor. “After you called me ‘Jensen?’”

Jared bit his lip. He couldn’t do this.

But Whitfield fixed him with a look and prompted, “You went home that night and...”

“He wouldn't talk to me all evening," Jared said, defeated. "He wouldn’t talk to me, not even to tell me I wasn’t getting any dinner, or that I should go to my room. I was- I stayed near him in case he wanted... But he just ignored me. He ate dinner without me. Then he finally told me to go to bed. I did. He came into my room, started yelling at me about not trusting him, lying to him, trying to make friends beyond him. He was so angry. He yelled at me and threatened me.” Jared closed his eyes. He could picture it all so clearly. He didn’t want to. He preferred to think of the good times with Speight, not that one bad night. “He yelled for a while, until I apologized. Then he said he’d been too easy on me lately. He told me to lay back so I wouldn’t get hurt. I did. He gave me one shock, for the, um the maximum, the thirty seconds. Then it was over. That’s all, sir. It was okay. It was over fast.”

“Did he strike you? Hit you?” Whitfield asked.

“No, sir. He never hit me, sir. He wasn’t like that.”

“What did he threaten you with?” Jensen asked.

“Sir?”

“You said he yelled at you and threatened you. Did he _threaten_ to hit you?”

“No sir. No, he- um, he threatened me with- just something he knew would scare me... Does it- does it matter, sir?”

“It matters,” Jensen said. Whitfield and Jensen looked like hound dogs on a scent. It was hard not to feel a little afraid, though he knew it was illogical.

“He said that he’d, he said if I-” Jared felt a kind of awful knowledge creep in, remembering Speight’s threat. “He said if I wanted friends so badly that he’d get- he’d get his friends to come meet me.”

“His friends,” Jensen repeated.

Jared nodded miserably.

“Why would he threaten you with inviting friends over?” Whitfield asked.

“He meant- he- he meant,” Jared shook his head and thought about exactly who Speight must have been thinking of. “For sex,” he finished weakly.

“Did he give any indication of who he was thinking of, specifially?” Whitfield asked.

“No, sir. But now I think,” Jared swallowed. “I think Lehne knew about... about Speight being with me, and he wanted Speight to uh, to give him some time with me. But it was just a threat, sir. He just said it because he was angry with me. Speight never would have said yes to him.”

He glanced up, but neither of their faces told him whether they believed him or not.

“When did Richard Speight start abusing you, Jared? Do you remember when it started?”

“He- The first night I was there, sir.”

“He began a sexual relationship with you your first night there?”

“Yes, sir. He woke me up, in my bed. He was touching me and I just let him. I was afraid if I said no he’d, uh...”

“Hurt you?” Whitfield prompted, after a minute.

“No, sir. I was afraid he’d send me away. I needed to stay, to get the evidence against him.” Jared whispered. He felt shame welling up strongly enough that his eyes stung.

“Jared...” began Jensen. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were in an impossible situation, and you made a choice that you shouldn’t ever have had to make.”

“Please sir, I don’t- I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Jared said desperately.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Whitfield said. “What Speight did to you, whatever he made you do with him, was not your fault, do you understand? Jensen and I are not going to judge you for anything you tell us today, because it was not, in any way, shape, or form, your fault. We know that. Do you?”

Jared shrugged stiffly.

“We want you to tell us, so that you can get justice, and so that you don’t have to suffer through it alone. We’re trying to help you, Jared. We want to help you. Everything you tell us tonight is something you can just get off your chest and not have to worry about telling later.”

Jared nodded and picked at the DVD case in his hands. He pried it open and then clicked it shut again. Jensen and Whitfield waited quietly.

“For the first two weeks, it was always the same thing,” he finally said in blank voice. “He would just rub against me until he came. It didn’t hurt and I figured it was worth it, if putting up with it earned me my freedom. Then he started doing other things. He touched me, and made me touch him. Under, um, under our clothes. I didn’t like it much, but it still didn’t hurt. A month or so after I came to live with him we had sex for the first time. It... He was careful so, it didn’t hurt much, it...” Images flashed suddenly through his mind. He could feel Speight's hands around his waist, feel him everywhere. He heard the harsh panting in his ear, and he couldn't seem to make it stop, even though he knew it couldn't be real.

With great effort, he shut down the thoughts and drew in several deep breaths.

“Jared?” Whitfield asked.

Jared shook his head. He wanted a few more painkillers, until he couldn’t think straight enough to remember. He wanted something to put him to sleep, fast.

“Can I watch the movie now?” he asked the sofa. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, sir.”

“If you need to stop, we can stop,” Whitfield agreed. “I can’t imagine how hard it is to talk about this, and you’re doing really well."

“Okay. I need to stop,” Jared said.

“Alright,” Whitfield sighed. “You were very brave to tell us everything you did. Thank you for trusting us with this. You’ve handled it better than most-” Jared tried to tune him out. His voice was so solemn and sincere that for some reason, it made Jared angry.

He couldn’t stand hearing Whitfield talking like what he did was brave, when he’d only talked because he’d felt trapped into it.

“Jared,” Whitfield said cautiously. He must have noticed that Jared had stopped listening.

“Don’t!” Jared barked into the sofa arm before he could stop himself.

“Jared, it’s okay. You’re safe here, you’re safe. You’re at Jensen’s remember? We’re not going to hurt you.”

“I know that, sir,” Jared forced out, still muffled into the upholstery but he was sure Whitfield was close enough to have little trouble making it out. “Just, I don’t want- I don’t want to talk any more tonight, okay, sir? Please just leave me alone.” Hot tears trickled out, and he squeezed the DVD case so hard his fingers hurt. A headache that must have been building since the questions started flared fiercely onto center stage.

“Alright. I pushed you hard tonight,” Whitfield said quietly. “I’m going to go. I’m sorry if I upset you.”

Jared nodded and refused to look at him. He didn’t want him to see that he was angry and crying.

“Get some rest, then,” Whitfield said sadly. Jared listened carefully to the rustling as he stood and moved away. Jensen followed him.

He could hear them talking by the front door, too low for him to make out the words.

Then Jensen came back, easing himself into the chair Whitfield had occupied, near Jared’s head.

“You thirsty?” Jensen asked softly. “I could bring you some hot chocolate, if you want it.”

Jared wiped his face roughly. He sent Jensen a glare from under his lashes. Jensen was watching him closely, eyes blatantly worried, and it sparked another flare of anger.

“What else do you want to know, sir?” Jared asked gruffly.

“Jared...”

“It’s not your business. It’s mine, not yours. But you must still be curious, sir. What else do you want to know?”

“Shit. Jared-”

“I was _frightened_ , sir,” Jared hissed.

“I know, I know you were,” Jensen soothed, eyes so warm and sympathetic.

“You wouldn’t stop asking. You wouldn’t leave me alone. I didn’t want to talk about it.”

Jensen’s eyes widened. “You were frightened of us? Just now?” he asked shakily.

“Yes sir," Jared said meanly. "You kept pushing, and I can't go anywhere. I didn’t want to think about it and now I can’t stop thinking about it. And I know it’s stupid to be scared, because you’ve never hurt me, but I am. My head hurts, sir. My head won’t stop hurting and I can’t stop- I still feel scared and I don’t- I don’t- I can’t-” Jared didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. He twisted his face away from Jensen to glare at the back of the sofa and catch his breath, and the collar seemed to tighten and press in and instead of catching his breath he just started gasping faster.

“Hey hey hey,” Jensen said. “Hey hey hey, it’s okay, you’re okay, it’s okay Jared.” His hand settled on the back of Jared’s neck, light and half-blocked by the collar, but the fingers that touched his skin were warm and steady, and made Jared realize he was cold and shaking. “Just breathe. Deep breaths, okay? Jared? Can you breathe for me? Deep breaths. Long deep breaths. You can do it. Please Jared, it’s alright, just breathe, that’s all, just breathe.” Jensen’s fingers rubbed lightly against his skin. He kept going until Jared listened to him and did start taking deep, deliberate breaths.

After he’d calmed down some, after the trembling had eased and the collar had stopped swelling in his mind, the blush of embarrassment began creeping up on his cheeks. He stared at his hands and wondered what was wrong with him. He was safe. He should be getting better, not worse, but he'd never had an attack like that, just from memories, before.

“You wanna talk about it, kiddo?” Jensen asked.

Jared shook his head, hard.

“You, uh, you want that hot chocolate, then?"

Jared considered. He wasn’t sure he wanted hot chocolate, but his anger had vanished so completely he couldn’t remember where it had even come from in the first place, and Jensen looked so hopeful.

“Yes, sir,” Jared whispered. Jensen nodded and left. Jared listened to him rustle in the kitchen. The microwave ran and beeped, and a few minutes later, Jensen came back out and carefully handed over the cocoa, saying nothing about Jared’s lightly trembling grip. Jared took a sip and it was good and sweet.

“How is it?” Jensen asked. “Does it need more marshmallows?”

“No, it’s fine,” Jared said hoarsely. He bit back the ‘sir’ that was on the tip of his tongue. Jensen sipped his own cup, still looking pale and troubled. “Thank you, Jensen,” Jared added, before he lost his nerve.

Jensen didn’t say anything, but he smiled.

Together, they quietly sipped their cocoa.

*****

Jensen came into the kitchen for a glass of water, and, okay, maybe to check on Jared before shutting off his own light. It was midnight, and he’d tucked Jared in an hour before, but through the dimness he spotted eyes staring back at him. Jared’s eyes were glazed with the lateness of the hour, but he was still watching Jensen from under half-closed lids, and he couldn’t just ignore that.

“Can’t sleep?” Jensen asked, leaning in the doorway with his glass of water in his free hand. He’d left Jared a glass of water on the coffee table and it looked like it hadn’t been touched. Even so, he had the urge to offer his own up just in case Jared preferred it.

Jared nodded and shifted a little under the blanket.

“Would it help you to sleep with the TV on?” If his mother were there he knew the disapproval that suggestion would earn him, but she wasn’t, and anyway if he thought a steady diet of ice cream sandwiches and a pint of gin every night were what Jared needed, then he’d offer him that.

Jared just shrugged. He made no move towards the remote. His dark hair was lank against his forehead, face pale and stretched. He looked exhausted. He should’ve been asleep, getting his strength back. Jensen felt a wave of desperation sweep over him. The things that Jared had been through were overwhelming, and he didn't know how to even begin to fix it.

He remembered Mrs. Dinwiddie saying over and over how if she’d just looked up from her book a few more times... if she’d just been paying closer attention, her daughter wouldn’t have been kidnapped that day. He’d pitied her, hadn’t blamed her, had mostly just been grateful he wasn’t her and didn’t have that one moment of disastrous carelessness on his conscience. Now he had months of carelessness on his conscience.

He walked over to Jared with half a mind just to turn the TV on for him or something, but when he got there, something in Jared’s eyes caught at him. Jared was watching him, and he didn’t look afraid. He looked as desperate as Jensen felt, and he probably had even less idea of how to fix anything than Jensen did.

“Hey, how 'bout this?” he asked gently. Carefully he nudged Jared upright, then slid in behind him on the sofa and pushed him back down so his head was in Jensen’s lap. Even as he was doing it, Jensen was doubting his own judgment. It wasn’t really appropriate, crossed about ten different lines, from Jared’s status as an apprentice, to the whole co-workers thing, to the age-gap, to the ways an abused child could interpret it wrong.

“This okay?” he asked carefully. “You can tell me to leave you alone if you want.”

Jared didn’t say anything, but his hand curled into the knee of Jensen’s sweatpants, holding him there, and his shoulders relaxed beneath his thin t-shirt.

Within ten minutes, Jared was asleep. Jensen watched the steady rise and fall of his chest and the soft part of his lips. Something about the sight hit him hard. He thought if he lived to be a hundred, he’d never have another moment in his life where he felt as full of conflicting emotions: guilt, tenderness, joy, despair, and affection.

He thought that when Jared had to go, back to his parents or to a real placement or to wherever he was going to have to go, it was going to hurt. Jared wasn’t his kid, but something about being the one to pull him out of that closet, being the one to give him hot chocolate earlier, being the one to get him to finally sleep, had made Jared his _something_. Something _his_. For the first time in his life, Jensen thought seriously about having children of his own. He thought if he ever did, and even if Jared was out of his life five years, or seven, or ten, by then, he'd never put his own children to bed without thinking of Jared sleeping peacefully on his lap.

He hardly knew a thing about Jared, not a real thing anyway. He didn’t know what he was like when he wasn’t either covering up or recovering, he didn’t know what he really liked and what he just pretended to like. He didn’t know his family.

It didn’t matter. With Jared’s head heavy in his lap, he loved him as much as he’d ever loved any other human being. He thought that the first time he held his own newborn son or daughter in his arms, the expected rush of unconditional love would already be a familiar feeling to him.


	11. Chapter 11

The girl at the door was short and frail, with the largest, saddest eyes Jensen had ever seen. Her hair was red and her face was nothing like Jared’s, which was why it took Jensen until she’d introduced herself to realize who she was.

“Mr. Ackles? I’m Julie Padalecki,” she offered solemnly. “Can I come in?”

Jared’s family were supposed to check before attempting contact of any kind, but he swung the door wide and fell back to let her pass without more than a second’s thought. He’d been trying to get a Padalecki on the phone for two weeks, since Jared had come to live with him. He wondered if this was the first step in getting Jared back for them, and had to suppress ruthlessly the unhappiness that idea generated. They were Jared’s family after all, and had more real claim to him than Jensen did.

“You’re Jared’s sister?”

“Yes, I- I’m his older sister.”

“You’re... eighteen?” He thought he remembered that from studying Jared’s background. He wouldn’t even have asked except that she looked about sixteen.

“Yes.” She frowned. The expression made her look a little older. “Is he... here?”

“Doing schoolwork at the kitchen table.”

“Can I see him? I need to talk to him.”

“I don’t know. I feel like you should probably give me some idea what’s going on first."

“I see. I guess what’s going on here is that I haven’t seen my brother in almost a year and I’d like to. And I’d also like to tell him something he needs to know, that I really think he should hear face to face, not just in a letter that’s probably been inspected by some stranger.” For all Jared had kept hidden, Jensen had _never_ seen him play for sympathy to get what he wanted. He doubted Jared had it in him. Maybe he was being cynical, but Jared’s sister seemed to have no problem doing it. He thought he’d buy the ‘poor little girl who just wants to see her brother’ thing more completely if she didn’t look like she was trying so hard to hide behind those big doe eyes.

“I’d be within my rights to report you for showing up unannounced like this,” he answered. “Family visits are supposed to be approved.”

“You would do that?”

“I want what’s best for him. Convince me that seeing you today is and we’ll go from there.”

“You want what’s best for him? You sound pretty adamant for someone who’s only know him a few weeks.”

“I’ve known him for going on eight months. I’ve only had custody of him for three weeks. I wish I’d had it from the beginning.”

“Because you know what’s best for him.”

“Yes. He’s a good kid. He doesn’t deserve to be punished any more for something that was a total accident in the first place.”

She was assessing him the same way he was assessing her, but he couldn’t tell what conclusions she was reaching, or what she was looking for exactly. In his line of work it could be important to remember that a person’s family could be the biggest danger of all.

“You know about his case?” she asked.

“I got his full file when I got custody of him, but I’d seen it before. I’m a government investigator and he’s been working in our office. We’ve all looked at his file, right down to reading the trial transcript. He got screwed. He never should’ve gotten ten years for just being present when his friend tripped and fell down the stairs.”

She ignored that to ask, “Why _did_ you get custody of him, exactly? You said you should have had it from the beginning, but the letter we got from him said he was happy in his first placement, doing well. Then we got one saying he'd been moved. What happened? What changed?”

“Can I see some identification before we go into this any further?”

“Let me see him and he can tell you exactly who I am.”

Wordlessly he held out his hand. He didn’t take it back until she’d placed an ID in it. He had to admit there was a devil inside him that got a little satisfied to see her feathers ruffled.

“Your turn,” she said stiffly, when he was finished examining it. He obliged with his driver’s license, since his GIS badge was in the bedside drawer when he was at home.

“His first placement didn’t work out,” he said while she was still looking it over. “The guy got arrested. You can read all about it in any of the papers. Government agent that corrupt is big news.”

“What did he do?”

“Falsified evidence, took bribes, didn’t pay his taxes. He was with the FBI for eight years and then at GIS for another, and he was a very busy guy the whole time. The list of charges is as long as my arm.”

She swallowed and blinked quickly a few times. Apparently, she hadn’t been reading the papers. Jensen wondered with a sinking feeling whether Jared’s little sister had taken a turn for the worse, and the family hadn’t had time to do things like read the news.

She’d said that she had to tell Jared something that would be better face to face.

“And Jared... what... Did he... Is he alright?” This time the big worried eyes seemed more genuine.

“Why are you here?” He gentled his voice. “If you didn’t know about Speight’s arrest or anything relating to it, then why are you here now? Are your parents finally willing to talk to him?”

“I- They don’t know I’m here. I told them I was taking a day trip to check out colleges. I think maybe they suspect but... they don’t _know_.” He looked at her closely. He thought she was telling the truth. “Please. Let me talk to him. I think it will help him, I swear it. There’s something he needs to know.”

Finally, he nodded. “Alright. But if you’re not going to tell me what you want to talk to him about first, and you refuse to clear it through official channels, I’m staying in there with you for this little chat.”

“No.”

“Yes. It’s the only way I’ll allow it. I don’t know you at all, and there are about five people in the world I’d trust with his safety. Blood ties or not, you’re not on the list.”

“Did something... has something happened to him?”

“A lot of things have happened to him, including his own family abandoning him without giving him an explanation. If you want to ask him what he’s been going through, you can, but if he doesn’t want to talk about it I’m not going to let you push. That’s his call. And I’m going to be there to see that you don’t push. That’s non-negotiable.”

“ _Alright_. Can I just see him?”

“Alright. Come with me.”

He thought about making her wait while he went in to talk to Jared first, but he wasn’t kidding about not trusting her, and he didn’t feel like leaving her alone in his apartment for even five minutes. Anyway, he figured Jared’s face would tell him if she was a good surprise or a bad surprise.

Jared’s head was bent dutifully over his GED work, but Jensen could tell by the way his shoulders were held that he was aware of someone’s presence. Slightly behind him he heard Julie’s quick intake of breath, and it made him look at Jared with the eyes of a stranger. Jared was pale. His bangs hung into his eyes, and did nothing to disguise the dark circles under them. His cheeks looked hollow.

Jared seemed to have a block against eating anything Jensen hadn’t set in front of him. No matter how many times Jensen had told him to just help himself to anything from the fridge and the cupboards, nothing ever disappeared that could be counted or easily measured. Jensen suspected Jared might sneak things that were harder to gauge, like spoonfuls of peanutbutter and handfuls of cereal, but he only suspected that because he thought that he was going through those things at a slightly faster rate than usual. If Jared was eating them, he was being stealthy about it, because Jensen had never found so much as a dirty spoon to prove it.

There were also nightmares. They weren’t a problem when Jared was still on the stronger painkillers. Now that he’d been dropped down to Aspirin or Tylenol, few nights had gone by uninterrupted. The worst ones had left him retching into the toilet. If a night like that happened again, Jensen was going to bring Jared to the doctor for some sleeping pills or something. He didn’t think either of them could take that as a regular fixture.

Jared’s lack of sleep showed clearly on his face, as did his lack of nourishment. He looked like a strong breeze would blow him away, and as if that weren’t enough, the last of the contusion on his cheek was still fading, a stubborn shadow that hung on accusingly day after day. The rest of Jared’s body probably hadn’t entirely healed either, but the gash on his scalp was hidden under a wing of hair, and everything else was hidden under jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

Julie stepped up level to Jensen’s shoulder when he halted just inside the doorway. Jared was still pretending with his head down, but his pencil hadn’t moved since Jensen had set eyes on him.

“Hey, Jared, there’s someone here to see you,” he said calmly. Jared looked up, and when he saw Julie his eyes got wide and round. The pencil dropped from his hand.

“Jared,” she said, soft and thick.

His mouth opened and he swallowed, then looked past her, then to Jensen and then to her again.

“Julie- Are Mom and Dad here?”

“Just me,” she said, with a little shake of her head. She stepped forward and he propelled himself out of his chair. They hugged clumsily, desperately.

Julie was the first one to pull back, though she kept a hand on his arm.“Are you alright?” she asked. Her eyes were fixed on the bruise.

“Oh. Yeah. I’m okay. Are you guys? Katie?” he asked softly, like he was preparing himself for bad news. Jensen felt his own gut clenching.

“Yeah,” Julie said. She let go of Jared’s arm and tucked her hair behind her ear nervously. “We’re all fine. Katie’s... well, she’s really good, actually. There’s actually, well, this surgery scheduled for next week and... it’s a full bone marrow transplant but it’s not... they found a really good match for her and the doctors say there’s a real chance it’ll cure her. Permanently. It’s a risk but if it works... They say no more treatments. No more recurrences.”

“That’s- that’s so amazing.” Jared’s voice was shaky. “When’s the surgery? Is she in the hospital still, or, already... I mean, I don’t know. When I left she was in, but she must be doing better if they can risk surgery?”

“Yeah, no, she’s been out for about three months now. They really went aggressive with the last treatment, so it was hard, but that was the plan, you know? They wanted to really force the remission, and then she’s been building her strength back up for the surgery. God, she looks so good, you’d hardly recognize her.” Julie’s smile dimmed. “She looks better than you do.”

Jared instantly looked away.

“Um. Well, you look good,” he shrugged uncomfortably. “How are, uh, Mom and Dad? I mean, they must be really excited, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Excited and just about going out of their minds trying not to be too excited. It’s not a guarantee. It’s just... the best chance we’ve had in a while.”

Jared nodded, but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say to that, and Julie’s worry hung in the air.

“You wanna have a seat?” Jensen asked, to break the awkward pause.

Jared looked at him quickly, like he’d forgotten Jensen was there, and Jensen could read the sudden questions in his eyes, the automatic ‘Is this okay?’ that Jared still hadn’t managed to break himself of. Jensen offered a smile to reassure him. “Your sister didn’t warn me she was coming, but she was pretty convincing about needing to talk to you, so I agreed to let her talk, on the condition that I be present. Does that seem fair to you, Jared?”

“Yes, sir,” Jared said quickly.

When they were alone together Jared always called him ‘Jensen’ now, and last time Misha had dropped in, Jared had seemed comfortable calling them both by their first names. In front of strangers Jared still used ‘sir’ though. It startled Jensen that he was using it in front of his sister. He wondered if Jared was even aware he was doing it.

“If you want to talk to her alone we can discuss it,” he offered, though the idea made him uneasy.

“This is- this is fine, sir. You can be here.”

“Jared, I’d really prefer to talk to you alone,” Julie broke in. She pulled out a chair on the side of the table closest to the door. She was at a ninety degree angle from Jared but her back was to Jensen, maybe hoping if she ignored him, he’d just go away. “What I’ve got to talk to you about is family business only.”

“I- I’d like him to stay. I trust him,” Jared said quietly.

Jensen moved around the table and seated himself firmly in the chair across from Julie. She opened her mouth in protest, then frowned and closed it again.

“Alright,” she said grudgingly. “If you're sure, but... I don’t think it’s the best way. I’m not even supposed to be here. If Mom and Dad...” she trailed off and bit her lip.

“Mom and Dad- they don’t know you’re here?”

“No.” She at least had the good grace to look guilty.

“I don’t understand,” Jared choked out. “Is it- Do they- Are they mad at me? They didn’t act mad during the trial, so...” He ground one hand against his eye, a gesture of upset that Jensen had never seen from him before. It made him look about eight years old. He sounded younger too, talking to his older sister. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I thought maybe someone had messed up, and I just wasn’t getting letters but... Did they write any letters at all?”

A flush crept across Julie’s cheeks. “This is why I came today, because I knew you must...” She shook her head and started again, eyes intent. “They love you, okay? They’d never think you would kill anybody and they know it was an accident, and they- they feel so guilty, Jared, for not being able to tell you. It’s just eating them up inside. But listen, okay, this is, this is probably going to be hard to hear, but you’ll understand when I’ve told you why. Mr. Fuller- he’s paying for Katie’s surgery. The day of your sentencing, right after, he came to our house with his lawyer. He made us a deal, Katie’s surgery, if we promised to cut all ties with you.”

Jared’s face was blank, his mouth slack with shock.

“The insurance company classifies it as an experimental treatment. They won’t cover it,” Julie rushed on, skin pale except for the flush in her cheeks. “He didn’t even give us time to think it over, said to decide that day, right then. We couldn’t say goodbye. We couldn’t explain to you. It was awful, it was such an awful night. As soon as he’d left, Mom started saying that they’d made the wrong choice. Dad broke their full-length mirror, slamming the bedroom door so hard. You have to understand how awful it was for them. If there’d been any other choice, any other way...”

Jensen listened to the ticking of the kitchen clock and watched Jared. Julie was watching him too.

“But after the surgery...” Jared’s voice was scratchy and wavering.

“If they try to contact you and he finds out, he said they’d owe him all the money back,” Julie said. “We’d go so far into debt... We’d lose the house... And then if Katie relapsed again...”

“So....” Jared said painfully. “I can’t _ever_ -” He couldn’t bring himself to finish, but Julie said nothing, and the words hung forever in the stifling air.

“We had to do it,” Julie mumbled finally. “There was no other way.”

Jared nodded and gulped.

“Anyway, it won’t be forever, Jared,” she rallied. “Mr. Fuller can’t live forever. And after the surgery we can try harder to convince him.”

“He can for a long time though, can’t he? Long enough, anyway.”

“Don't give up hope, okay? We haven’t given up hope, so you shouldn’t either. In the meantime you- you’ll be okay... right? You’ve made it this far, and your letter said...” She looked at her brother with desperate eyes, and Jensen wondered what she’d do when Jared told her what a lie the letter he’d sent home was. She must have known it already, with his sickly look and the fading bruise on his cheek.

Jared took a deep heaving breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right. I’ll be fine, and Katie will have that surgery and she’ll get better. I mean, she’ll have to, right? It has to work, after everything. It will. I’ll be fine here, and you guys need to- to forget about me.”

“Jared, no, we're not forgetting about you. Don’t you get it? We all love you. This is killing us but it won’t be forever. Please say you know that it’s not forever.” A tear dripped off of Julie’s lashes.

“Okay,” Jared’s voice shook. “Okay, I know. It’s gonna be okay. Listen, tell them I luh-love them, okay? And tell them I understand. And make sure- make sure Katie knows I’m not mad at her or something stupid like that. Make sure she knows I undertand.”

“She- she doesn’t know, Jared. We didn’t want to tell her anything about it.”

“Oh. Oh, of course.” Jared nodded. “Okay. That’s good. Um. That’s-" Julie reached across the table and took his hand tightly. Jared pressed his lips together and stared at their hands for a long minute. His voice was low when he spoke. "You shouldn’t stay any longer than you have to. It’s dangerous, right? It’s- thank you for coming, but if you being here messes it up now... you- you can’t let it all be for nothing.”

“Jared, listen,” she held on as he tried to pull his hand away, and he stopped tugging almost instantly. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I- I mean if I just- I can’t-”

“Of course I will,” he said. “Will you guys be okay? You don’t think he’ll... double-cross you or something like that?”

“No, he, he doesn’t seem to blame us, he just says it was you. He even came to visit Katie a couple of times in the hospital. We stayed right there the whole time, but he was nice to her. You wouldn’t have ever thought-” She cut herself off at Jared’s expression.

“Does she know he’s the one paying for her surgery?” he asked.

“Well, we had to explain why he was allowed to visit her,” Julie answered.

“Just be careful, okay?” Jared said after a minute.

She shook her head as if to say ‘What else can we do?’ and Jensen wanted to take her and shake her for the decision her family had made, but at the same time he felt pity for them.

He was also determined that they’d be the ones who had to deal with all the consequences from now on. Jared was out. He was done. He was Jensen’s now, to worry over and protect, and nothing from Jared’s old life was going to be allowed to come back and bite him later on down the line. Jensen swore it to himself.

  
They walked to the door together, silence thick. At the door, Julie turned to Jared and opened her mouth, but then she said nothing and it was Jared who spoke, voice soft.

“It’s going to be alright,” he promised.

“I can’t believe this has all happened to us,” she whispered. Her eyes dropped from his face to his collar.

They had a lawyer working on his case, but without Pellegrino’s cooperation everything was up in the air, and it seemed likely that Jared would be wearing it for awhile yet.

“You have to do... whatever you think is best,” Jared said in a low raspy voice. Her eyes flitted back up to his face, and almost against her will it seemed, her hand drifted out to touch lightly on the bruise.

“Jared,” she whispered, her eyes flickered to Jensen, then back to her brother. “What-”

“No. Don’t,” Jared shook his head. “I already told you, I’ll be fine. The things that happened, they’re over. They don’t matter now. I’m safe at Jensen’s, I promise, okay?”

She sighed and dropped her hand, let it go.

  
Julie started up her car and pulled away without stopping to look back. Jensen hoped she pulled over as soon as she was out of sight, because the way she was wiping furtively at her face, he suspected she couldn’t see much of anything.

Jared watched the end of the block where she'd turned for several long minutes. Jensen pictured his own mother and father, his little sister and his big brother. He was used to living in a different part of the country from them, after four years of college and two at GIS. He loved them dearly, but he could go a week or two without talking to any of them and not even notice. He’d always liked to think that that meant he was independant. But he couldn’t imagine looking at the phone and knowing there were none of them he could pick it up and call.

He put a tentative hand around Jared’s shoulders and drew him in a little closer, not wanting to be the one to force him to come back inside, but unable to let Jared droop there alone for a second longer. Jared twisted under his grasp. His arms wrapped around Jensen’s waist and his face pressed into Jensen’s chest. Jensen circled him in his own arms, held him tight. Jared didn’t cry.

*****

Attending the meeting without punching Mark Pellegrino in the face was about the harshest test of Jensen's self control he'd ever experienced. The only thing that kept him in his seat was his determination to get Jared some kind of justice. What Jared had been put through deserved far more than a bloody nose.

Director Ferris was tough to read, and as she walked Pellegrino through his explanation of events, Jensen worried that she might be primarily concerned with how the FBI would look coming out of this, with actual justice coming in a distant second.

"...So that's when I approached you, Director," Pellegrino was saying smoothly. "If you'll recall, I gave you what I had gathered up to that point, and you felt it had merit and gave me the green light on the investigation."

"I do recall that," she agreed. "But there's a part of it that you're forgetting."

Pellegrino glanced at Jensen and said, "Forgive me Director, but I don't think so."

"What you had wasn't enough for an investigation. You and I both knew it. You told me something else at that meeting, to get me to sign off," she said calmly.

"Director, if I didn't have enough for an investigation, I know you never would have signed off on one. You're too honest an agent to bend the rules that way-"

"Cut the bullshit," she interrupted. "What's discussed in this meeting can come out at trial, or not, depending on what I hear here today. I'm not ashamed of any decision I made in this mess. I'm more curious today about the decisions _you_ made."

Pellegrino's eyes widened. "Trial, Director?"

"You came to me with your evidence, such as it was, just suspicions and a grudge, from what I could see. True suspicions, as it turned out, but they wouldn't have been enough if you hadn't brought Jared into it that day."

Pellegrino's face got very still. "I was concerned for him," he said.

"Why?"

"Because of- there were certain rumors I had heard, in an unofficial capacity. I had no evidence to back them up, but I'd always known there was something off about Richard Speight, and when I heard he had a powerless boy living with him, I grew _very_ concerned about his safety. I'm sure it's clear now that I had reason to be."

Jensen curled his hands into fists and kept his eyes on Pellegrino's face. Pellegrino was watching Director Ferris.

"Yes. Quite clear," she said. "What's not clear is when exactly you decided that putting a minor into the hands of a child molestor was the way to get your evidence."

Pellegrino protested, but Ferris just ignored him and turned to Jensen.

"Where did Jared say he first met Agent Pellegrino?" she asked him innocently.

"At the detention center where he was incarcerated, ma'am," Jensen gritted out.

"And why did he say Agent Pellegrino was there?"

"To recruit him to be some kind of mole in Speight's house, ma'am."

"And when did this visit take place, exactly?"

"November 4th, ma'am."

"November 4th. A _month_ before you came to me, asking me to push for your investigation because you were _afraid_ a child was in danger."

"He's lying, Director," Pellegrino said. "He's a criminal, he's just trying to get out of his sentence, maybe sue the FBI or something. I'd never met him before Speight's arrest. If he says different then he's fucking lying his ass off!"

There was a long silence while Ferris glared at Pellegrino like he was something from the bottom of her shoe.

“Are you aware we have laws in this country?” She asked finally, deceptively quietly.

“Excuse me?” Pellegrino looked confused, but with a strong dose of uneasy.

“I’m just trying to understand... You are aware that we have laws in this country? I’m starting at the basics because an act of this monumental stupidity literally leaves me at a loss for how to wrap my mind about it. So, Agent Pellegrino: laws. We have them.. You’re aware of this fact?”

“Yes. Ma’am," Pellegrino gritted out. "But Director Ferris-”

“And what would you say our duty is as law enforcement officers? Before you answer, I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the name.”

“To enforce the law,” Pellegrino said sullenly, then rushed on, “Which is exactly why-”

“ARE YOU AWARE, Agent Pellegrino, of the laws prohibiting reckless endangerment of a minor? How about the ones prohibiting the procurement of other human beings to be used as chattel? Are you aware, Agent Pellegrino, that it’s not your job you need to worry about, because that’s already gone, but rather how many years in prison you’d be willing to strike a plea deal for?”

Pellegrino's face went from red to white, and it was far more satisfying than a simple punch would have been.

*****

  
Jared turned 15 six weeks after coming to live with Jensen. It had been four weeks since Julie had come and gone. There had been no further word from Jared’s family, and secretly Jensen found himself thinking that it may be for the best, even if it was painful at the moment.

Jensen didn’t make him talk about it. He tried his best not to bring up family around Jared at all, though it was impossible to avoid the subject completely. Since he’d taken Jared in, his mother had called at least once a week for updates, and he’d fielded more frequent calls from his brother and sister as well. He tried to be casual about the calls, but it was hard to misread the look in Jared’s eyes when they came in. He didn’t know exactly how to get that look out of Jared’s eyes, but he knew he was going to try his hardest to do it. He was already working with his Mom to get his parents to come visit soon. If there was any way he could swing it, he’d get his siblings there for it too, make it a proper introduction into the Ackles family.

The other thing he hoped would help, in time, was the family he was already including in Jared’s life.

He watched his cousin Samantha, Charles’ wife, as she carried a bowl of potato salad out to the table in the shade of an ancient oak tree. Jared trailed at her heels with a full pitcher of something. Her voice carried across the yard as she thanked him for the help. Jared ducked his head and mumbled ‘You’re welcome.’ Jensen wished he weren’t still so shy around her, but he followed her back into the house without hesitation, and she was still pretty new to him.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Cassidy said. She grinned, but her eyes were sharp.

“He looks like he’s doing okay to you, right?” Jensen asked. He didn’t mean to, but sometimes he needed reassurance from an outside observer that he wasn’t visibly screwing everything up.

“Better than I would’ve said was possible,” Cassidy answered promptly. Jensen relaxed. “You’re doing a good job. You’re helping him a lot, probably more than you know.”

“He’s strong,” Jensen shook his head. “It’s not me. I’m just treating him like anybody would. The rest is all him.”

Cassidy wrinkled her nose. “Whatever you say. Just don’t go testing that theory by passing him off to someone else.”

It was Jensen’s turn to wrinkle his nose. “Are you serious?”

“Just don’t get all ‘I need my freedom. He’ll be fine now,’ or some bullshit like that when he’s just getting comfortable,” she lectured.

For a minute, Jensen was honestly too stunned to be angry. His mother had hinted at the same kind of worry, but that was his mother. Cassidy was his friend, and she was his teammate. She’d seen him handle things his mother never had, and never would. And she wasn’t that much older than him, and all set to make a lifetime commitment herself in just a few more months.

“Fuck you,” he snapped. “After everything he’s been through, you think I’m just going to abandon him? When he’s finally in a safe place where no one’s abusing him or fucking using him for their own personal gain-”

“Jensen- Shit, I’m sorry, okay?”

“I just... Why does everybody keep expecting me to give up? I’m not going to stick him in a sack and throw him in the river, you know? Jesus. He’s-” He just barely caught himself from finishing that sentence. ‘He’s mine now,’ he was going to say. The sentiment was pure, but out loud it would probably hang strangely in the air. “He’s an amazing kid,” he said instead. “And I could give a shit whether you believe me or not, but I’m not going to abandon him. Ever.”

He got up before he said something to her that he regretted.

He headed inside the house. The house was cool and dim after the late afternoon heat of the yard. From upstairs he heard the excited murmur of young voices mixing with Charles’s low rumble. Lucy and Jane had some kind of surprise for Jared, and they’d claimed Charles’s help to get it finished.

The doorbell rang as he was heading for the kitchen. Samantha crossed in front of him and Jensen slipped into the kitchen behind her. Jared was there, holding an apple in one hand and a paring knife in the other. He was looking down at the apple and he seemed lost in thought. Jensen wondered what he was thinking to make him look so serious, and was deeply glad it wasn’t the knife he was regarding so intently.

His shoe must have made a scuffing noise on the linoleum, because Jared flinched and looked up, eyes wide like Jensen hadn’t seen them in a while.

“Hey,” he said, and Jared took a half-step back, bumping into the counter. “Woah, Jared, it’s alright. Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Sorry. It’s just me.”

Jared just stared at him, eyes murky with fear.

“I should’ve called out, let you know I was coming,” Jensen said uncertainly. Jared seemed to relax a little bit. He stopped staring at Jensen and looked at the items in his hands again instead.

“I’m supposed to cut this,” he told Jensen. He bit his lip and Jensen thought he was probably embarrassed by his minor freak out.

“So why don’t you?” He kept his voice light.

“I- I don’t know how,” Jared said. It would’ve almost made Jensen laugh, if Jared didn’t suddenly look like he were on the verge of tears.

“Um. Did she have a special way you’re supposed to do it?”

“I don’t know,” Jared repeated.

From the hallway, Jensen could hear Hodge chatting with Samantha. They had a mutual interest in technology, and they could be on the subject for a while.

“Well did she say what it was for?”

Jared shook his head, then blurted, “She mentioned fruit salad, but- I don’t- I don’t know. I don’t remember. She said but I didn’t-” he pressed his lips together, and Jensen was amazed to see that his chest was heaving. Jared turned around and put the apple on the cutting board. His shoulders were up around his ears.

“Jared.” He cautiously approached the hunched back. “Did something happen? Did someone say something? This can’t all be for an apple you don’t know how to cut.”

“It _is_ ,” Jared asserted, without turning around. “It _is_. I don’t know how to do it, and I don’t want to mess it up. I can’t cook, but I wanted to help her. I just- wanted to help her, but she's gone now and I don’t know if she told me how to do it or not, and even if she didn’t I should know. I should know how to cut a stupid apple.”

“Jared,” he said helplessly.

Jared clattered the knife down onto the cutting board and curled over on himself, his forehead coming down to press on his fists on the counter. Jensen lifted his hand to put it on Jared’s back, but something about the taut bowstring curve of it forbade contact.

He didn’t know what to say. Jared hated to be asked what was wrong. The question made him clam up. But without understanding what was wrong, Jensen felt completely helpless to fix it. Maybe Cassidy and his mother and all the other concerned observers were right to worry. Maybe it was the height of foolishness to think that he was old enough and wise enough in any way to give Jared the support he needed.

He desperately wanted Samantha or Charles, or even Cassidy, to come in right then and start asking Jared whatever magic questions would work on him. At that moment, he was sure that anyone else would have a better way of handling this crisis than he did. But no one else appeared, and he had to do something.

Carefully, he reached around Jared and snagged the knife and the apple. He moved down the counter a few feet and started chopping, making big messy chunks because his hands weren’t entirely steady.

After a little while, he thought he could feel Jared watching him, though he was afraid to stop and check. Eventually, Jared straightened up. He surreptitiously wiped his eyes on his sleeves.

“How do they look?” Jensen asked. Jared studied them carefully, but he didn't say anything. Jensen focused back on the chopping. Jared drifted in closer, little by little.

“They’re, uh, kind of not even,” he offered from Jensen’s elbow.

“Yeah, yeah, everyone's a critic,” Jensen said, trying hard to mask his relief. He finished chopping the last pieces and dropped the knife with a triumphant clatter. “Done.”

Jared bent in towards the apple chunks. Jensen noticed that he was leaning up against Jensen’s side. He casually freed his arm to loop it around Jared’s shoulders. “See that?” he said. “Nothing but the best for the birthday boy. Seriously, this is going to be the tastiest fruit salad you’ve ever had in your life, and you know why?”

Jared looked up at him and shook his head.

“Variety. You’ve got big chunks and then all these little chunks, so every mouthful will be a completely new experience. Fruit salad is usually so boring, that’s its main failing, but this one, this one is going to be completely unpredictable.” Jared rolled his eyes, but he was smiling now.

“Hey, hope we’re not interrupting anything,” Samantha called from the doorway. “Is there a cooking lesson underway here?”

“Yup,” Jensen wheeled them both around. “I was just showing Jared how a professional cuts apples-”

“Jared, hey!” Hodge followed Samantha into the kitchen. “Happy Birthday, man!” He handed Jared a book-sized present messily wrapped in newspaper. Jared grinned and Hodge grinned right back.

“Thank you,” Jared said.

“How a professional cuts apples, Jensen?” Samantha turned back from inspecting the pile with an eyebrow raised.

“It’s going to be the best fruit salad ever,” Jared told her. He didn't say 'ma'am.'

  
It did end up being a damn good fruit salad. Jared had three helpings, more than he ate of anything else. Jensen tried not to feel ridiculously pleased by that. But Jared was still too damn skinny. He’d grown a full inch in the weeks Jensen’d had him, and that seemed to have made it harder to get any kind of fat layer on him. If Jensen contributed in some small way to any food that Jared ate three helpings of, he couldn’t help feeling a little smug about it.

After dinner, Jared opened his presents. The girls gave him a decorated picture frame with a picture of the Whitfield-Smith family in it. Jared was clearly touched. The girls, who could be hellions when they put their minds to it, were gentle and sweet when Jared gave them a thank you hug. The first time they’d met Jared, he was still recovering from his injuries, and they’d been sternly warned against being too rough with him. Though he was physically recovered, they still treated him like he was made of porcelain. Charles thought it was amusing. Jensen remembered Jared’s hunched shoulders in the kitchen less than an hour ago, and thought they were probably more right than they knew.

From everybody else Jared got books and movies. He appeared delighted by every one of them. Jensen waited until all the other presents had been unwrapped before taking a deep breath and pulling a folded square of paper out of his pocket.

“There’s one more thing, Jared,” he said, keeping his gaze firmly away from everybody else at the table. He wasn’t sure anyone else here would understand or approve of what he’d done. If Cassidy thought he was biting off more than he could chew, then probably Hodge agreed. And if his mother also thought so, then probably Samantha had her doubts as well. Charles had helped him put his current plan into motion, but he probably had his own reservations that he’d decided not to share.

At the moment though, even Charles’ opinion didn’t matter. This wasn’t about any of them. And Jensen had always followed the path he’d set out for himself before, from learning to fly a plane when he was sixteen, to entering GIS straight out of college and moving out to the East coast. He’d never let anybody’s doubts stop him, not even his own. He held onto that thought as he began to speak.

“Listen, I had a long talk with Misha the other day, and nothing’s set in stone, nothing can be set in stone completely with this situation. But then, nothing in this life is set in stone, you know? So, I mean, all we can do is set things up the way we want them to be and then fight our hardest to keep them that way, right?”

Jared nodded at him, wide-eyed.

“So, Misha said that as far as he can tell there’s no reason you can’t stay with me as long as you need to, til we get your sentence overturned, til your sentence is up, til... whenever. You’ll come back to work at GIS like before. I’ll be your official guardian. If you want me to, I mean. Do you?”

Jared nodded without hesitation.

Jensen held the paper out to Jared. “You can’t keep sleeping on my couch though. Misha said that’s a dealbreaker. We need more space, so. That’s a copy of the deed to a house out here. About ten minutes from Charles and Samantha’s, actually. I thought we could go look at it tonight, and if you like it, well, tomorrow morning I’ll go sign the deed and it can be... ours. What do you think?”

Jared had taken the paper and unfolded it, but he wasn’t reading it. He was looking up at Jensen. Tears shone in his eyes, and Jensen knew his own were not quite dry. He was just glad he’d made it all the way through the speech.

“Yeah,” Jared husked. “Okay. Yeah. I- I don’t need to see the house even. I uh, I-” Jared’s voice wobbled. He looked back down at the paper. “I want you sign it.”

There was silence around the table.

Samantha broke it finally, saying “Well, if that was the last present, I guess we’re ready for dessert,” in a shell-shocked voice.

“Unless someone has something to beat a house,” Hodge joked. “Like, I don’t know, a submarine or something? I mean, c’mon Jensen, I hope you’re already planning how to top this next year. It’s not going to be easy.”

“A pony,” Cassidy offered.

“Only if it comes with a barn,” Hodge answered. “And it's made of solid gold.”

Samantha got up to get dessert. Charles began fending off his daughters' demands for a pony, while Cassidy egged them on. Jensen tuned them all out when Jared glanced up at him and said quietly, “Thank you, Jensen. I-” Then he got choked up and shook his head. Jensen crammed all his doubts into the back of his mind as hard as he could. Jared didn’t ever need to know just how in over his head he was.

“No need to thank me,” he said with a grin. “This is all self-interest. I only used to get invited here for dinner once a month before you moved in.”

Jared smiled.

Samantha stepped out of the door and everybody’s attention focused on the cake like lasers zeroing in. It was German chocolate, Jared's favorite, and the way Jared's eyes shone when he caught sight of it made Jensen wish for a camera.

Hodge led everybody in singing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs. The girls slipped out of their seats and squirmed up on either side of Jared, gently but determinedly. They had prime positions for cake as Samantha set it down. Their eyes widened and flickered in the glow of the fifteen candles. So did Jared’s.

“Make a wish,” said Lucy.

“But don’t tell us what it is,” added Jane.

Jared nodded and closed his eyes tightly.

For just a second, the candles guttered and the way the shadows fell hit him exactly wrong. Jensen saw Jared in the closet, face half-hidden, dark blood dripping. The next instant the flames flared, and the image vanished. In the golden glow that was left, Jensen could see his eyes squeezed shut and his lips moving as though he were praying. It made Jared look young, too young to have been through everything he’d been through. And there were still the trials to go, and no way of telling what else could go wrong in the future. It made Jensen’s stomach hurt.

The candles settled and Jared’s face smoothed out. His lips stopped moving and tugged up into a tiny secret smile. Then he sucked in a strong gulp of air, opened his eyes, and blew all the flames out in one breath.


End file.
